Tuesday 31 August 2010

31st August Checked the food level

All hives checked today.  Almost all the syrup has been taken down into the hives.  I am out of sugar so will buy some more at Bookers tomorrow and I will return on Thursday and feed them some more.

We did well at the Honey show over the weekend.  Won 10 first places, and 9 second places.  We are very pleased with the results.

29th August Feeding of the hives

Nicola and I fed all the hives a sugar syrup.

Feeding hive 3


Feeding Hive 5

19th August Treated the hives for varroa.

A couple of operations carried out today. 

The empty super was returned to hive 1 so the bees could clean it out. 

Hive 3 (the colony from Houghton Grange) was found to be queenless.  There were 3 emergency queen cells.  One of these was transfered to hive 5 in exchange for a frame of stores.

Hive 5 The queen has turned drone layer.  This means the queen has run out of sperm and the bees did not react to it in time.  A Queen cell has been transfered from hive 3.

Hives Hives 1 and 2 have been treated for varroa.  3 and 5 have been left alone until after the queen has been born and mated.

Hive 4 is still a very weak colony and has not been treated.  There is no natural mite drop so again I am going to leave them alone for now.

12th August Honey Harvest

Today we took the honey super off Hive 1.  When extracted there was 11 pound of clear light honey.


Here you can see the 10 frames in the extractor.  When the handle is turned the honey flyes out and drains to the bottom of the extractor.


Here you can see the honey draining out of the extractor into a honey bucket.  It is then put in a warming cabinet, when warm it will be filtered and put in jars.  Half will go to the staff at Wood Green, the other half I will keep to put in the Honey show, then sell to pay for some of the costs of the wax, sugar and drugs used in the hives this year.

Saturday 21 August 2010

6th August 2010 Collect New Residents

Houghton Grange

I have been busy over the last couple of weeks and been a bit slow in updating.  Judith and I were asked to remove some bees from inside the roof at Houghton Grange, near St. Ives.  It is a listed building that is about to have some work done on it.  But they needed the bees removing first.  Luckily, there is scffolding all over the building so we had relatively easy access.  Although we could see the bees from inside, they could not be reached so we had the assisance of a couple of builders to remove the roof.

Removing the tiles.  All the tiles had to be kept to be replaced as this is a grade 2 listed building.


Sawing throught the planks below the tiles.

And here is the colony ready to be cut out of the roof.  Unfortunately there are no pictures of the actual operation as I was up to my neck in honey, wax and bees.  It took a couple of hours to cut the comb out and crimp it into a Hive 3 (empty since the last colony died out).



This was the roof space after the bees had been removed, just before the planks were replaced.



And finally the hive on the roof.  It was left there for a couple of days for the bees to get used to the new home before it was moved on the Sunday evening to Wood Green Animal Shelter.


Sunday 1 August 2010

Inspection 1st Aug

Did a short inspection of the hives with my daughter Nicky Jane. 

Hive 1 has still not moved into the super. 
Hive 2 has still got about a frames worth of space (one side of two frames are still to be drawn). 
Hive 3 is now empty other than a couple of wasps.  The frames have all been cleaned out. 
Did not look at Hive 4. 
Hive 5 moved closer to the hive stand.  Still not moved into the super.

Friday 23 July 2010

Visit by Godmanchester in Bloom 22nd July

We had a visit today by a couple of people from Godmanchester in Bloom.  They are setting up an apiary in Godmanchester and came along to see what our apiary looked like.  They donned veils and joined me in the apiary and we had a quick look in hive 5.  After they left I did a full inspection of all the hives:

Hive 1 - Now has a new queen.  She is laying well and already has 4 frames of brood.  The colony has used some of the honey in the lower super so it is now about 1/2 full.  They have not needed the extra super I gave then a few weeks ago.

Hive 2 - Saw the Blue marked Queen.  5 frames of brood, just a little room at the edge.   If they fill that I may need to think about a super?

Hive 3 - Down to one frame with bees.  I am moving hive 5 to take over this slot.  Any bees form this hive will be merged with hive 5.

Hive 4 - Only 2 frames of brood.  Still not very strong.  They still have some room on a couple of frames of foundation that are not drawn.

Hive 5 - Moved a couple of feet closer to the hive stand and put on a pallet.  When I opened the hive there was no capped brood or larvae, but there were eggs on two frames.  It looks like this queen has been superceded.  I am very glad I left a queen cell in the hive when I moved the others to hive 1!  As a result we can expect this colony size to reduce over the next couple of weeks before picking up again.  this will probably mean no honey this year from them.

Tuesday 13 July 2010

Inspection & Training

We have had Ricky Kather on site for a couple of days.  Ricky is a PhD student from Sheffield studying Varroa and why bees tolerate them.  This week she is working with various bee keeping associations who are teaching her bee keeping skills.  Yesterday we went through the material that is covered in the theory sessions of the basic bee keepers course.  Today we visited a number of apiaries including Wood Green.

Inspections today:
Hive 1 - we did not go into the hive as we wanted to give any new queen some space.  Last week the hive was queenless so I added a frame with queen cells from hive 5.  We looked at the varroa tray and found a distinctive domed cap of a queen cell under where one of the queen cells had been.  Looks like one emerged.  Let's hope she gets properly mated.
  
Hive 2 - I thought it might be in need of a super this week.  Wrong, they have not progressed much more from last week.  I suppose the dry weather has stopped the nectar flow.  We did change the landing platform (see picture).  Hive 2 and Hive 4 being side by side had identical doors, which could encourage drifting, where bees return to the wrong hive.  We put on a different door so the colours are the other way around.  I was going to do this on hive 4 but that hive is not very strong.  If bees return and don't recognise the new platforn, i would rather they drift into 4 than from 4!

Hive 3 - Not examined other than the varroa tray.  There was no varroa drop seen.

Hive 4 - Not very strong, brood only on 2 frames.

Hive 5 - we only checked the super to see if they had started drawing the foundation.  Not yet.

Doors now opposite colours

Examining for Varroa

Ricky examining Hive 4

Tuesday 6 July 2010

Queen Inspection

Looked at all the hives this morning.  I worked up the field, so here is what I found in each hive.

Hive 2 - Saw the blue marked queen, 6 frames of brood, 3 of stores and one of foundation not yet drawn.  I moved this frame in one from the edge, to encourage the bees to draw it out.  Will probably need a super next week.

Hive 4 - This is the two small colonies that were combined.  they have centred on the 2 left hand frames, they have 4 frames of stores and 2 frames not drawn.  There were eggs, larvae and capped brood, so there is a queen but this colony is still weak.

Hive 1 - This is the queenless colony.  They were a bit fractious again today.  The queen cell has still not hatched, so must be a dud.  I took a frame with 3 queen cells from hive 5 and put it in here.

Hive 3 - This colony is not viable, there are a few bees on 3 frames, but no brood or queen.

Hive 5 - The brood box is full.  There is no more room for the queen to lay.  The bees have not started on the super, but have raised 8 queen cells.  3 of these were transfered to hive 1.  4 queen cells were removed, but I did leave the best looking one just in case there is no queen in this hive.  I hope she is still here and just gone off lay, because they are nice little dark bees.

Thursday 1 July 2010

1st July check Hive 1

Hive 1 did not get checked last Sunday as I was worried that being queenless on the last check, they might be a bit fractious again.  So taday as part of my round robin looking at all my other hives, I called in to check hive 1.

They still look to be queenless.  There is no brood but there is a sealed queen cell.  I am beginning to think that it must be a dead cell though.  It should have emerged by now.  Workers sometimes close the door on a queen cell after the queen has emerged, but there is no sign that this cell has been opened.  I will give it until next week.  If things don't look up, I will add a frame of eggs from hive 5.

The bramble has started to flow, the bees are bringing in loads of nectar, even if there is no queen.  I added an extra super to giver them more room as the hive is quite full.

Sunday 27 June 2010

Animal Fun Day 27th June 2010

Today was the first time we have opened the apiary to the public.  We had a stall in the main arena and were due to open the apiary to the public at 1045 1330 and 1445.  The fun day was slow to start and no one turned up for the first session at quarter to eleven.  However one man turned up at half past and was so interested that I took him down to the apary on his own for a look. we did not open any hives on this visit.  At the half past one session we had 6 people and so I opened hives 2 and 4.

Hive 2 is doing OK but nothing special.  I removed the super as it is not being drawn and the bees do not need it at the moment. They have a couple of frames to draw in the brood box.  The queen is laying and there was eggs, larvae and capped brood in the hive.

Hive 4 , I combined both sides into one colony.  The green side had no queen and was just getting weaker.  the Blue side has a laying queen and 2 and a bit frames of brood.

At the quarter to three opening we had half a dozen adults and even more children.  On this visit I opened hives 3 and 5.  Hive 1 was not being opened due to their temper last week and that they are superceding their queen.

Hive 3 is nearly dead.  It has no queen and is dying out.  I have decided not to try requeening as it is too weak.  I will gradually move hive 5 into its place.

Hive 5 is bursting at the seams.  It was in urgent need of more space so the super from hive 2 was added and the queen excluder after Judith had sat and cleaned all the brace comb off it.  There are 8 frames of brood and there is no spare space.  Hopefully they will move up into the super very quickly.

We sold a small amount of honey, but also had a number of people enquire about beekeeping courses for the spring.  All in all a good day with a reasonable amount of interest and quite a number of leaflets distributed.

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Routine inspection 15th June 2010

Not a good days bee keeping. Two of the hives have either gone queenless or the queens have gone off lay. By the fractious nature of the bees I would guess queenless.

Started with Hive 2. Super not drawn, but there are still 3 brood frames to draw so I am not worried, in fact there is no use the super being on this hive at the moment. Might take it off next week and give it to hive 1. Queen marked Blue. She was found on underside of the queen excluder, shows you must always check the queen excluder.

Next was Hive 4. This one is divided into two nucs. Green side- Very weak no sign of a queen.
Blue side – Not very strong, only a small patch of one frame with brood. I must merge these colonies soon.

I then moved to Hive 1. Definitely not nice today. Several dozen bees batting my veil and followed me out of the apiary. Appears queenless, but has 2 queen cells. Need to leave them alone for a couple of weeks. Super nearly full, will need a new one next week, I will probably move the one fron hive 2.

Last hive was Hive 3. Small amount of capped brood. No eggs or larvae. What happened to the queen? Did she swarm or was she not properly mated. She is not likely to have swarmed as she was laying in the hive 10 days ago! This is a disapointment as I was about ready to move these bees onto a new bee keeper.

Due to the fact that the bees from Hive 1 were still having a go, I decided not to look at hive 5. They had a lot of wax to draw last week and will be OK until next week.

Saturday 5 June 2010

2nd Beginners Class







The other half of the Hills Road course came to Wood Green this morning. We looked at hives 1 to 4.

We started with Hive 2 which was good tempered and has replaced the queen. There were eggs, larvae and capped brood on 3 frames.

Hive 4 which is split into two colonies had one side with no queen, the other side has eggs so must have a laying queen. These two colonies will be merged, and after the class left, I opened the vents between them so they can get used to each others smell.

Hive 1 was a little anti social. If they are not careful they may get an ASBO! They managed to sting me through my suit and they followed me for some time after the inspection. I wonder if my suit still has pheromones from the check on the nasty colony at Stukeley. They did not go for any of the students so it is probably my fault. Let's face it, most problems with the bees are down to the bee keeper, not the bees. This colony is fine with 7 frames of brood and a nearly full honey super. They will need a new super by next week.

Final check was on Hive 3. This is the colony that appeared queenless last week. We added a frame of eggs so they could create a new queen. Looks like another bee keeper error. All the eggs and larvae have been capped. But on the next frame there are eggs and larvae. Looks like there was a queen in there after all, she just took a short wile to start laying.

The swarm that arrived 8 days ago was not examined. The queen in there was laying last Wednesday so can stay in peace for a little longer.

Wednesday 2 June 2010

Check the swarm

Today I have been checking my hives. I have been out looking at all my other hives, not the hives at Wood Green. The swarm that we picked up last Friday and moved to WGAS needed checking though. When I picked them up there had been a frame missing from the hive. I had put a sheet of foundation in a frame earlier in the day and it needed fitting in the hive before the bees started filling in the space.

Judith and i opened the hive and first thing to notice was that the syrup that we had fed them was gone. All one litre had beed used. We opened the hive and saw that the bees had drawn the foundation on about 4 frames. They had also built brace comb across the gap where the frame was missing. I had to cut the brace comb out before inserting the frame with foundation.

Before we closed up, I could not resist having a look at one of the frames of drawn comb. There in the bottom of most of the cells were eggs. Good news, the queen is alive and well and laying. Now to leave her alone and let her build up her colony.

Saturday 29 May 2010

Bee Keepers Class








Not the best of days for bee keeping. Forecast was for showers and it did just that. Judith and I turned up early and put a gazebo over hives 1 and 3. Half the students from the Hills Road Bee Keepers course turned up at 10 am. We had a cup of coffee while discussing hive records and planning the inspection. Due to the weather, we would only look at the two hives under cover. We started in hive 3 which I was expecting to contain a new queen. Wrong, there was no queen. Just a few Drone cells, no eggs, no larvae and workers on 3 frames.
We moved onto hive 1. Much better. The bees were working the super to begin with. We looked at a couple of super frames, but the honey was not capped even though there is honey (nectar) in all the frames. We then examined the queen excluder and then into the brood box. The first frame was mostly stores with a few capped brood cells. The second frame was mostly filled with capped brood. The students then took out a frame each in turn and examined it. We found the marked queen. We saw eggs, larvae and capped brood, both worker and drone. We looked at the bigger body and eyes of the drone.
We took a frame of eggs and young larvae from hive 1 and donated it to hive 3 in the hope that they will raise another queen. We then fed the swarm that arrived yesterday. Finally we examined the varroa trays of hives 1 and 2. Could not find any varroa. Good for the bees, but I would have liked to find one to show the students. We then packed up, took down the gazebo and left the bees alone.
On the way out, security reported that a swarm had been reported in Huntingdon. Judith got the details and we passed that one on to one of the Huntingdon Bee Keepers Association members to collect.

28th May 2010 Swarm Collection

Brought a new swarm in from the quay in St Ives. One of the largest swarms I have seen for some time, they were hanging from a wall behind some offices on the quay. When we arrived at about 2pm the swarm was getting ready to depart. There was a lot of waggle dancing on the surface, always a warning that they may be about to depart. Judith went off to Wood Green to collect the hive while I remained behind and kitted up.

Not wanting to loose the swarm, I brushed them off the wall into a skep. When Judith arrived back with the hive, they had mostly settled back down again. I knocked the bees out of the skep, directly into the hive. I had to place a cardboard ramp up to the door for the stragglers to march in.

At 8pm I returned and collected the hive and moved it to Wood Green. I placed it at the Bluebell Wood end of the apiary, just in case it was the power lines at the other end that caused the last swarm to abscond.

Monday 24 May 2010

22nd May 2010 Filming with Katie Clarke

Filming an interview for Katie Clarke a media student from Leeds University. She is working on a film about the plight of the honey bee.

During the filming we inspected hive 2. Now no eggs or larvae, we did watch a new bee chewing its way out of a cell.

This Blog is now up to date. Hopefully all hive inspections will follow within a couple of days of them happening. The first half of the Hills Road Bee Keeping course are due here next Saturday so a full report will follow.

19th May 2010 Swarm Absconded

The new swarm has absconded!

Fed the two nucs in hive 4 plus hives 2 and 3

17th May 2010 Swarm Collected

Collected a swarm from Environment Agency this evening.

16th May 2010 Hive Inspection

Hive 1 - Queen not seen but the Queen rearing Frame of foundation has been drawn and eggs laid in it.

Hive 2 - Larvae and capped brood together with 6 queen cells. No sign of the queen so it appears that the artificial swarming last week did not prevent her from swarming. 2 Frames with queen cells and a frame of stores together with their bees removed to the other side of hive 4. Frames replaced by frames of foundation.

Hive 3 - Eggs and Larvae seen. Also seen was one queen cell that was hatched. Is this supersedure?

Hive 4 Green - very quick inspection. Queen cell has hatched but no sign that she has mated.
Hive 4 Blue - New nucleus made from hive 2.

9th May 2010 Hive Inspection

Hive 1 - Some bees now working the Honey Super.

Hive 2 - Castellated spacers removed in the same process as for hive 1. Found 2 queen cells. One cut out as it was on the same frame as the queen. The other was on a separate frame which was removed and placed in hive 4 together with the bees on this frame. A frame of stores together with its bees was also put into hive 4. I also shook an additional frame of bees into hive 4 to start a new colony off.

Hive 3 - Added more syrup. They have now had 4 litres.

Hive 4 - Started from an artificial swarm as above. Also had a second frame of stores and a frame of foundation added.

1st May 2010 Swarm in Hive 3

Collected a swarm in Hive 3 and moved to WGAS. This hive is a wooden version of the Apimaye hives. Bees placed on one frame of natural comb and 9 frames of foundation. They will be fed a light syrup in a couple of days to encourage them to draw the foundation.

27th April 2010 Remove Castelated spacers


Both queens marked. As they are both last years queens, they were both marked with green pen on the thorax.


Hive 1 has had the castelated spacers turned and the lower spaceing guide removed. Quite an operation. To do it, I took the roof off and turned it upside down beside the hive. I placed an empty deep super on the roof. I then transfered each frame from the brood box into the super. I found and marked the queen in this process. When all the frames were out, the lower spacer just pulled out. The frame runners can then be pushed out on the center and turned over.


This means that when I examine the brood chamber in the future, I can slide the frames across. As i don't intend moving the hives in the near future, the castelated spacers are not needed in the brood box.


15th April 2010 Fencing Complete and bees move in



Willow fencing is complete. Animal fence is tested and the netting is all in place.
Hives 1 and 2 are moved into place in the evening. One of the nice things about the Apimaye hives are that they are so easy to move. Just turn the catch, remove the door cover, close the door and turn the catch. It takes longer to describe than to do it. All the hive parts are locked together, so just pick it up by the handles and put it in the back of the car and drive. The frames are kept apart by the built in Hoffman spacers and there are castelated spacers on the frame runners and lower supports built in for migatory bee keeping. Moving in couldn't have been easier. As soon as the bees were on site, the doors were opened and the door guards replaced.

Hive Stand Construction











Fence Construction

T/Sgt Richard Myers and personell from USAF Alcolnbury and USAF Molesworth making short work of the post holes with a mechanical auger.

Many thanks to all who helped in the construction.


















Work in fencing off the corner of the field was shared by some of the WGAS groundsmen and volunteers from the US Air Force based just up the road at Alcolnbury. First a horse proof fence had to be constructed as we were using the bottom of a field that is used by a couple of the centre's horses.

Once the animal fence was in place, then an inner fence had to be constructed. On the west side this fence would be lined with willow to form a wind break.















On the other sides would be a net to force the bees up and over the public path, but still allow the public to see in the apiary and later to allow them to watch bee keepers at work with the bees.

Setting Up

This blog is going to show what is happening in the apiary at the Wood Green Animal Shelter in Godmanchester, Cambridgeshire. As the apiary was set up earlier in the year, the first few posts will be a catch up to show how the apiary was constructed and the bees arriving on site. Once that has been done, I aim to post hive notes so that you can look to see what is happening to the bees.

The apiary was first proposed after a meeting at the end of 2009. Wood Green Animal Shelters (WGAS) had asked my wife Judith about putting bee hives beside a nature trail that was being proposed. Judith is the secretary of the Cambridgeshire Bee Keepers Association. Rather than put hives around the trail, we agreed to set up an apiary. We gave WGAS the contact details of a couple of other public apiaries so they could see what was proposed and to show that these apiaries could be run safely for the public.

I keep bees along the A14 corridor in the Huntingdon to St Ives area. I also import Apimaye bee hives from Turkey. I had been running field trials using these Apimaye hives and the apiary seemed like an ideal place to continue with these trials. It would also be ideal to show other bee keepers these new hives. I also teach bee keeping and the apiary is being developed with teaching and breeding in mind.