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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #8206  by NigelP
 12 Jul 2020, 14:02
Managed first inspections on the hives on the stand the badger pulled over. Perhaps not surprisingly no eggs or young larvae in either of them. One has a couple of nearly sealed queen cells. The fall may well have damaged the queens or at least put them off laying. We shall wait and see.
 #8210  by Japey Edge
 12 Jul 2020, 22:42
I hope it's all good Nigel.

Today I split one of my double brood colonies. They had a queen cup in last week with larvae and jelly/milk so I took it down. This week they had a couple of unsealed QCs and one that was sealed but tore apart when I lifted the frame out. So few I'm assuming supersedure. This is a recently re-queened colony so I'm assuming as Nigel has mentioned previously, the old bees are (stupidly) trying to requeen their new queen.

So my plan is to make the split today, take down QCs in the next 5 or 6 days, then unite them again.

Another nuc with a locally raised queen (daughter of a buckfast) is so amazingly calm and she has laid up an almost perfect pattern. They were stuffed so I did something a bit odd - shook off a frame and put in with the aforementioned split, swapping for one of the three foundation frames they had. I just didn't have enough equipment with me.

Even though the out-apiary is only 3 miles away it's drastically reducing my enjoyment here. I don't want to stock the car with my entire beekeeping stock :lol:

Still not keen on inspecting double brood. Such a chew.
 #8212  by Patrick
 12 Jul 2020, 23:31
[quote="Japey Edge" Even though the out-apiary is only 3 miles away it's drastically reducing my enjoyment here. I don't want to stock the car with my entire beekeeping stock :lol:

Still not keen on inspecting double brood. Such a chew.[/quote]

I totally get that Jazz. At one time I managed bees year round in several locations miles apart. Unless you can agree a shed on site the only vague, generalising and cryptic advice I can offer is try to manage your bees like they are three miles away, not just exactly like you did when they were in your garden.

Re double Nationals. Hint - you don’t havec to inspect every frame every inspection. ;)
 #8215  by NigelP
 13 Jul 2020, 07:51
Japey Edge wrote:
12 Jul 2020, 22:42


Still not keen on inspecting double brood. Such a chew.
Jaz, yesterday I inspected all my double brood, only really needed to remove a couple of frames from each. No need to inspect every single frame, just enough to see eggs and no queen cells. What more would you want to get from an inspection? Only one needed a serious look as a few queen cells.
I also start removing frames from the middle as I know the outer ones are usually stores and pollen. Goes against conventional wisdom of inspections ...but hey ho....works for me and speeds up inspections considerably.
 #8217  by AndrewLD
 13 Jul 2020, 09:03
NigelP wrote:
13 Jul 2020, 07:51
Jaz, yesterday I inspected all my double brood, only really needed to remove a couple of frames from each. No need to inspect every single frame, just enough to see eggs and no queen cells. What more would you want to get from an inspection? Only one needed a serious look as a few queen cells.
I also start removing frames from the middle as I know the outer ones are usually stores and pollen. Goes against conventional wisdom of inspections ...but hey ho....works for me and speeds up inspections considerably.
That is the very point made by Randy Oliver in the talk that Chris pointed us to recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcfqTx4_FAo&feature=youtu.be (42 minutes through)
Even if one doesn't have lots of hives to go through, the shortcut you recommend gets the inspection over and avoids the 9th frame onwards tetchiness syndrome by which time the bees have had enough of you.
I have adopted it as standard practice of last Saturday.......
 #8224  by Steve 1972
 13 Jul 2020, 15:21
Fun and games again yesterday..
First hive doing brilliant and got a 5th super..
The second hive..the clipped Queen vanished two weeks ago and i found two capped Queen cells which where knocked down to one..yesterday the Queen cell had been removed ...on looking through the supers to extract i found a full super just about full of worker brood and there was the missing marked Queen running over the comb..she is now back under the excluder with a brood box full of empty drawn comb..
The third hive laying worker..
The fourth will also be a laying worker colony soon..i was going to shake them out but i will leave them to cap as many super frames as they can before i do eventually shake them out..
The fifth was a unite two weeks ago so i reduced it down to one brood box..
The six was a unite three weeks ago with the Queen accepted and laying ..yesterday i spotted a unmarked virgin in there which sickened me so i closed it up..
The seventh has my only mated virgin this year in there laying away..so that will be four virgins failing to return from mating flights...
I come out of winter with seven productive colonies and i am now down to four so four or five Queen will be bought this week to make nucs up ready to go into winter..
 #8244  by Chrisbarlow
 14 Jul 2020, 21:37
That sounds Like fun and games Steve. Good luck
 #8245  by Chrisbarlow
 14 Jul 2020, 21:38
Checked an apiary last night to find a nuc and colony over run with wasps. They were beyond saving as both queens had been killed. The buggers. Extremely annoyed.

Checked another apiary tonight and found all nucs there doing well and coming on nicely. Nice to see.
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