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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #2685  by Chrisbarlow
 11 Apr 2019, 09:02
that sounds like a really successfull apiary inspection Mick
 #2695  by Patrick
 11 Apr 2019, 22:24
Nice and bright but frustratingly cold still, consistent East winds. Few larger colonies on double brood are full of bees and on two supers just for room for bees.

Contrastingly a single small colony looking after for a friend a couple of miles away took 1/2 gall syrup and looked at again today - light and no storeson any frames. Will need to feed again urgently. Was unpleasantly surprised.

Suspect may be too cold for good nectar flow yet despite all the blossom. No shortage of pollen.

Moral of this - keep hefting if you can’t actually inspect. They are using a lot of energy building up and foraging and it’s a bad time to be checked, if insufficient nectar flow.
 #2696  by MickBBKA
 12 Apr 2019, 00:16
Chrisbarlow wrote:
11 Apr 2019, 09:02
that sounds like a really successfull apiary inspection Mick
Ha ! It was a lot better than I was expecting. It would have been nice to see the new queen in the colony but its too cold to have a real good look. Took less than 5 mins per colony..LOL

Cheers, Mick.
 #2717  by Patrick
 13 Apr 2019, 22:32
Finally, finally, finally got round to sorting out last years tail end supers. Two melts down supers that had been hit by wax moth (out apiary unexpected loss and occupied by wax moth in incredibly short time), some not very very well drawn out frames rewaxing cleaned but still not reassembled with foundation frames.

Just have three more brood chambers that need sorting then I am cleaned up and ready to go..

Fed a colony I am looking after for a friend, fed them a fortnight ago and they have used all of it, Not expanding as well as they should and not a drop of stores left. I think they are in a location with a dearth of nectar so far to be honest. No obvious signs of disease and brood pattern ok.

Still feels too perishing cold with east wind to go in and clip queens - most irritating as are getting bigger all the time and just makes locating Queenie a bit slower, which increases the time for the whole job considerably. Annoying.
 #2741  by Chrisbarlow
 16 Apr 2019, 14:34
Popped in to Willie Robsons chain bridge honey farm at Berwick. It makes for a pleasant visit
 #2743  by Cable_Fairy
 16 Apr 2019, 17:29
Cable_Fairy wrote:
06 Apr 2019, 22:47
I did an inspection this afternoon and am a little worried about what I found on one frame. Last week on the frame it was full of lava, however these are now capped and they all look to be Drone Cells. Looking into the cells there appears to be eggs on the wall sides, and not on the bottom. On other frames there is normal sealed brood and lava but I could not see any eggs. I found the queen on the frame with the drone cells, I am going to open up again tomorrow and take some photo's.
I took some photos and passed them to a local bee keeper for his evaluation, and sure enough it would appear that my Queen is "firing blanks". The advice is that I should combine my two hives, getting rid of the Queen and all the drone cells, and then when the colony gets ready to swarm split the hive.
However could I do something else: - Perhaps buy another queen and install her in the hive after first removing the Q and Drone Cells.
Are there any other suggestions?
 #2744  by NigelP
 16 Apr 2019, 18:13
If she is firing blanks...all you now have left is very old winter bees that will die very soon....don't waste your money on a new queen for them. Shake them out and they will enter your viable hive(s) and have some use before they RIP.
 #2746  by Patrick
 16 Apr 2019, 20:50
I second Nigel's advice. Don't bother with uniting - more complications currently with a box of drone brood than worth messing about with. Just bad luck having a drone laying queen (we all get them from time to time) so just move on.

You are probably less than a month away from when you will be grateful for the spare equipment! I would give the frames with drone brood in to chickens (if you know of some) and then knock out the wax for melting down and rewax with foundation sharpish. You are then ready for a swarm if you hear of one or can deliberately split your own hive.

One of the best happy things in beekeeping for me is spare kit in the shed ready for use when you need it!
 #2783  by Chrisbarlow
 20 Apr 2019, 21:08
It's a fantastic spring so far. Started grafting today, a good 10 days earlier than normal and I suspect I could have done it 10 days ago. All colonies very strong. Supers on everything and they're filling up really quickly. They are all very pesky though at the moment, I suspect that's OSR related. If only years could be this good.
 #2786  by AdamD
 21 Apr 2019, 06:24
Checked some colonies during the week and one has superceded it's queen; it hadn't been too strong and at the previous inspection there was a lot of drone brood so she was obviously on the way out.

Yesterday I found one colony with queencells which was a bit disappointing- both brood chambers are full of honey and brood but there's little up in the supers - sometimes bees do that - they have read the wrong book! The queen will go soon, however this colony will be good for grafting into as they are ready to make queencells now so I'll make it a queenright queenraising colony using the Demaree method.
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