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.

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.