3/17 Came back to AL and split the hive with the swarm cells in. Made two hives with 4 frames of things in each. The worked on was the same one which had swarm cells in on 3/3. Now have 11 hives at AL and 2 at home.
3/16 Inspected the two hives at AL that have the original two queens still in. Found eggs in both and a few almost capped swarm cells in one. This is the hive that I hadn't put a second deep box on and I think I crammed too many full frames in when I did the splits... at least two frames of honey and no empty frames. I think this was the mistake. Iro was there for the first time and it was interesting to talk about how her dad looks after bees in Greece.
3/10 Split the hive in the backyard into three. Found one fully capped swarm cell. One of the hive transported to AL. Worked well as I think we took a few worker bees with it which then oriented at the new location. Now have 10 hives at AL and 2 at home.
3/9 Split the feisty hive into two with the plan to subsequently recombine it as an experiment.
3/3 Split the two hives at the cottage at AL These hives have done amazingly well with 3 deep boxes full of everything. Could have done a three-way walk away split on one of the hives. Instead took the time to check everything. One of the hives had a capped swarm cell and three queen cups with at least one egg in one of them. Split the hive with swarm cell/queen cups into 4 hives and the other one into 3. Spent the next few days shuffling the hives around to try and spread the bees a little more evenly. It worked well, I think. Need to check the new hives on 3/31 to see if we have eggs in all the hives.
3/1 Noticed first bloom on the apricot tree had opened. Almond trees down the creek in full bloom
Sunday, 10 March 2013
Friday, 22 February 2013
February 2013
2/22 Noticed first few blooms on Loren's almond tree were open. In the following week all the almonds trees down the creek were in full bloom. Loren's tree were a bit behind these.
During February: Placed a third deep on all of the hives and started opening up the brood nest by placing in empty frames. Moved honey frames up in the third box. The bees did very well and drew the empty frames and started drawing frames in the third box. Keep opening up the broodnest each week (I think for two weeks in total) and moving frames up. The bees at the cottage and at home ultimately drew all the frames out so as to have 3 boxes full of drawn out frames with brood almost everywhere. This whole procedure worked great and will have lots of resources for the splits in March. The feisty hive, though, did respond as well and struggled to fill the extra space.
During February: Placed a third deep on all of the hives and started opening up the brood nest by placing in empty frames. Moved honey frames up in the third box. The bees did very well and drew the empty frames and started drawing frames in the third box. Keep opening up the broodnest each week (I think for two weeks in total) and moving frames up. The bees at the cottage and at home ultimately drew all the frames out so as to have 3 boxes full of drawn out frames with brood almost everywhere. This whole procedure worked great and will have lots of resources for the splits in March. The feisty hive, though, did respond as well and struggled to fill the extra space.
January 2013
Number of hives: One at home and three at LA
Noticed lots of drones towards from all the hives towards the end of January. Much earlier than in previous years. Check for mites and found them to be in the 10-20 range per day.
Monday, 5 March 2012
March 2012
3/29 Inspected the two sets of two hives that were split and didn't get the original queens. These three-way splits were split back on the 24th February. Just saw eggs and larvae.
3/23 Swarms
3/10 Transferred the bees in the feisty nuc at the AL farm into an 8 frame deep box with screen bottom board etc. This hive contains the original queen. I saw her today - big and blond.
3/9 Checked the hive in the backyard containing the old queen to see what was going on. Didn't seem like there were many eggs but there were a few medium frames of capped brood. Moved a partially drawn out into the brood nest.
Similarly checked the cottage hive containing the old queen from that split. Saw more brood when compared to the backyard hive on the deep frames. The hive was busy. Placed an empty frame within the brood nest to try and persuade the bees to draw more comb.
Also checked the feisty hives, which consists of the original hive and a nuc that was split off 5 days ago. Found lots of eggs in the nuc, so, despite my best intentions, that's were the queen ended up. With that news, I checked the main hive and found 12 queen cells, four of them capped. In the others larvae were visible. The hive was still feisty.
3/5 Noticed that the first buds on the pear tree in the backyard had opened, probably yesterday or the day before that.
3/4 Checked the hive in front of the cottage at AL that contains the queen from last week's three-way split. It seemed during the splitting that this queen had stopped laying eggs, presumably in preparations for a swarm flight. The hive was full of eggs today, so it seems like she's laying again, or never actually stopped. The hive was busy. The split hive in the original spot was very busy also, whereas it's neighbouring hive not so much.
Also did a full inspection of the feisty hive, as this hive has not been split yet. Didn't see any queen cells but there were a lot of bees. Lots of brood in the bottom deep plus brood in the medium above it. The bees were really annoyed - need to do something about this. Decided to split off a nuc, as these bees will surely swarm if nothing is done. Perhaps the new queen will be more docile and the hives can be combined back together later. Took three deep frames of brood, one frame of eggs and the remaining two full of capped brood, and two frames of nectar/pollen and put them in one of our new 5-frame nuc boxes. Checked for the queen but didn't see her, hopefully I left her behind. Took too many frames really as the original hive only had three drawn out deep frames in the bottom box. But trying to hobble this hive a little and presumably this will help. The medium above is full of brood though.
3/3 Jessica checked the hive in the backyard that contained the queen from the three-way split done the week before. This hive was slow with bees until yesterday when suddenly a lot of orienting bees came out. The hive looked good. Lots of brood and eggs. Saw a drone outside of the hive.
3/2 The two split hives at both AL and in the backyard that contained the queens were really quiet until today. Opened up the entrances to the medium size. Lots of bees orienting from them. Particularly the AL hive - almost thought they were about to swarm for a moment!
3/2 Drones: Saw one drone on the outside of one of the cottage hive at AL. The first one of the year that was outside.
3/23 Swarms
3/10 Transferred the bees in the feisty nuc at the AL farm into an 8 frame deep box with screen bottom board etc. This hive contains the original queen. I saw her today - big and blond.
3/9 Checked the hive in the backyard containing the old queen to see what was going on. Didn't seem like there were many eggs but there were a few medium frames of capped brood. Moved a partially drawn out into the brood nest.
Similarly checked the cottage hive containing the old queen from that split. Saw more brood when compared to the backyard hive on the deep frames. The hive was busy. Placed an empty frame within the brood nest to try and persuade the bees to draw more comb.
Also checked the feisty hives, which consists of the original hive and a nuc that was split off 5 days ago. Found lots of eggs in the nuc, so, despite my best intentions, that's were the queen ended up. With that news, I checked the main hive and found 12 queen cells, four of them capped. In the others larvae were visible. The hive was still feisty.
3/5 Noticed that the first buds on the pear tree in the backyard had opened, probably yesterday or the day before that.
3/4 Checked the hive in front of the cottage at AL that contains the queen from last week's three-way split. It seemed during the splitting that this queen had stopped laying eggs, presumably in preparations for a swarm flight. The hive was full of eggs today, so it seems like she's laying again, or never actually stopped. The hive was busy. The split hive in the original spot was very busy also, whereas it's neighbouring hive not so much.
Also did a full inspection of the feisty hive, as this hive has not been split yet. Didn't see any queen cells but there were a lot of bees. Lots of brood in the bottom deep plus brood in the medium above it. The bees were really annoyed - need to do something about this. Decided to split off a nuc, as these bees will surely swarm if nothing is done. Perhaps the new queen will be more docile and the hives can be combined back together later. Took three deep frames of brood, one frame of eggs and the remaining two full of capped brood, and two frames of nectar/pollen and put them in one of our new 5-frame nuc boxes. Checked for the queen but didn't see her, hopefully I left her behind. Took too many frames really as the original hive only had three drawn out deep frames in the bottom box. But trying to hobble this hive a little and presumably this will help. The medium above is full of brood though.
3/3 Jessica checked the hive in the backyard that contained the queen from the three-way split done the week before. This hive was slow with bees until yesterday when suddenly a lot of orienting bees came out. The hive looked good. Lots of brood and eggs. Saw a drone outside of the hive.
3/2 The two split hives at both AL and in the backyard that contained the queens were really quiet until today. Opened up the entrances to the medium size. Lots of bees orienting from them. Particularly the AL hive - almost thought they were about to swarm for a moment!
3/2 Drones: Saw one drone on the outside of one of the cottage hive at AL. The first one of the year that was outside.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
February 2012
2/24 First Buds on the apricot tree opened during the day
2/24 It was the last warm day before a week of cooler weather. Did three way splits on the backyard hive and the AL cottage hive. This was a preemptive attempt to stop any swarming as past experience has shown that opening the brood nest does't seem to work so well. Also saw the starts of queen cups (with eggs in) in the cottage hive... Our main worry was doing the splits too early, as there are still no drones flying, although we saw drones inside both hives that we split today.
Backyard hive: Made two new hive stands out of blocks and placed screen bottom boards on them, so a total of three hives, including the original spot. Before splitting, the backyard hive consisted of 4 medium boxes; the bottom two containing brood. On opening the brood Jessica immediately spotted the queen (a black one) and we put her in a new medium box set it on the hive location nearest the lemon tree. We then divided the remaining brood between the three hives, with about 4 or 5 frames of brood going in all the hives. There were a good amount of eggs, larvae, and capped brood to go everywhere. Added honey frames that were in the upper two medium supers to make up the eight frames. On the hive with the old queen we also added a empty medium on top to give the bees room. Hope this was an okay move.
Cottage hive: Again made two new hive locations. The cottage hive consisted on two deeps with 3 mediums on top, so the threeway split was into deeps. During the previous inspection I saw a swarm cup on one frame, with an egg in it, and two supercedure/swarm cells on another frame. When we opened the brood, Jessica again saw the queen quickly (blond/black strips). It was good to see her as she's been such a good egg layer. The deep frame was put in a new deep box and placed on the hive stand furthest east (on the plastic table). We then start to divide up the brood between the three hives but found a distinct absence of eggs!!! I guess the old queen had stopped laying, so as to slim down for her impending swarm flight. Not sure if that was a good sign or not but it was a problem to make sure we had eggs in the hives for new queens. Jessica eventually found some (hopefully) and we convinced ourselves (hopefully) that the swarm cups also had eggs in. These we split between the queenless two hives. I can't remember if we also put eggs in with the old queen. Hopefully we did as it seemed clear that she'd stopped laying. Also worried that the eggs might be too old to make queens.... I have it in my mind that eggs need to be a day or so old to be transformed into queens. Anyway, the swarm cups should be okay anyway.... Gave each hive a deep frame of honey and added empty frames to make up the remainder. Also put medium boxes on all the hives and interspersed with honey frames. 4 or so in each hive separated with empty frame. Worried that the hive with the queen needed more space, so also added a medium on top full of empty frames. Not sure if we handled the hive with the old queen in properly as she wasn't laying anymore, so perhaps we shouldn't have loaded this hive up with quite as much honey.... perhaps she
2/21 Inspected the hive at AL:
The farm hive or feisty hive is still very damp. The order of boxes from the previous inspection was MMDMM. The bees had essentially left the two lower mediums and moved up into the deep, which was full of about 5 or 6 frames of brood. Still some brood in the lower mediums but some had died. I spaced them two much last inspection. Won't do that again.
The cottage hive was dry, in the sun, and full of bees. The boxes were: DDMMM. The bees had moved up into the second deep, which was full of brood. Noticed one new queen cup that seemed to have an egg in it. Also saw 3 supercedure cells. This hive is getting ready to swarm. Exchanged the deeps to put the one with the brood at the bottom.
2/17 Inspected the hive in the backyard. Added two empty drawn frames within the brood of the second medium and added an empty (no comb either) frame within the brood on the bottom medium.
2/16 Noticed Lauren's almond tree was in bloom and had perhaps been like that for a couple of days. Last year, Jessica noticed the almond tree in bloom on the 9th February, so this year we are maybe a week behind. Still have not seen any drones. Last year during an inspection we saw lots of drones on the 5th... maybe this year there are hiding inside the hive...
2/9 added an empty box to the cottage hive
2/8 added a box to the cottage hive
2/6 inspected the cottage hive
2/5 SUnday - inspected the hive in the back yard and the fiesty hive at AL
2/24 It was the last warm day before a week of cooler weather. Did three way splits on the backyard hive and the AL cottage hive. This was a preemptive attempt to stop any swarming as past experience has shown that opening the brood nest does't seem to work so well. Also saw the starts of queen cups (with eggs in) in the cottage hive... Our main worry was doing the splits too early, as there are still no drones flying, although we saw drones inside both hives that we split today.
Backyard hive: Made two new hive stands out of blocks and placed screen bottom boards on them, so a total of three hives, including the original spot. Before splitting, the backyard hive consisted of 4 medium boxes; the bottom two containing brood. On opening the brood Jessica immediately spotted the queen (a black one) and we put her in a new medium box set it on the hive location nearest the lemon tree. We then divided the remaining brood between the three hives, with about 4 or 5 frames of brood going in all the hives. There were a good amount of eggs, larvae, and capped brood to go everywhere. Added honey frames that were in the upper two medium supers to make up the eight frames. On the hive with the old queen we also added a empty medium on top to give the bees room. Hope this was an okay move.
Cottage hive: Again made two new hive locations. The cottage hive consisted on two deeps with 3 mediums on top, so the threeway split was into deeps. During the previous inspection I saw a swarm cup on one frame, with an egg in it, and two supercedure/swarm cells on another frame. When we opened the brood, Jessica again saw the queen quickly (blond/black strips). It was good to see her as she's been such a good egg layer. The deep frame was put in a new deep box and placed on the hive stand furthest east (on the plastic table). We then start to divide up the brood between the three hives but found a distinct absence of eggs!!! I guess the old queen had stopped laying, so as to slim down for her impending swarm flight. Not sure if that was a good sign or not but it was a problem to make sure we had eggs in the hives for new queens. Jessica eventually found some (hopefully) and we convinced ourselves (hopefully) that the swarm cups also had eggs in. These we split between the queenless two hives. I can't remember if we also put eggs in with the old queen. Hopefully we did as it seemed clear that she'd stopped laying. Also worried that the eggs might be too old to make queens.... I have it in my mind that eggs need to be a day or so old to be transformed into queens. Anyway, the swarm cups should be okay anyway.... Gave each hive a deep frame of honey and added empty frames to make up the remainder. Also put medium boxes on all the hives and interspersed with honey frames. 4 or so in each hive separated with empty frame. Worried that the hive with the queen needed more space, so also added a medium on top full of empty frames. Not sure if we handled the hive with the old queen in properly as she wasn't laying anymore, so perhaps we shouldn't have loaded this hive up with quite as much honey.... perhaps she
2/21 Inspected the hive at AL:
The farm hive or feisty hive is still very damp. The order of boxes from the previous inspection was MMDMM. The bees had essentially left the two lower mediums and moved up into the deep, which was full of about 5 or 6 frames of brood. Still some brood in the lower mediums but some had died. I spaced them two much last inspection. Won't do that again.
The cottage hive was dry, in the sun, and full of bees. The boxes were: DDMMM. The bees had moved up into the second deep, which was full of brood. Noticed one new queen cup that seemed to have an egg in it. Also saw 3 supercedure cells. This hive is getting ready to swarm. Exchanged the deeps to put the one with the brood at the bottom.
2/17 Inspected the hive in the backyard. Added two empty drawn frames within the brood of the second medium and added an empty (no comb either) frame within the brood on the bottom medium.
2/16 Noticed Lauren's almond tree was in bloom and had perhaps been like that for a couple of days. Last year, Jessica noticed the almond tree in bloom on the 9th February, so this year we are maybe a week behind. Still have not seen any drones. Last year during an inspection we saw lots of drones on the 5th... maybe this year there are hiding inside the hive...
2/9 added an empty box to the cottage hive
2/8 added a box to the cottage hive
2/6 inspected the cottage hive
2/5 SUnday - inspected the hive in the back yard and the fiesty hive at AL
Sunday, 7 August 2011
August 2011
8/26 Checked inside the Langstroth hive in the backyard ahead of the beedate tomorrow. Found a thriving hive with all combs drawn out again and much honey being processed. Removed 5 or 6 frames from this hive 11 days ago, so the bees have drawn out one frame every two days. The hive has been exceptionally noisy these last few days with the noise coming from the top boxes... exactly where the comb was being built. Will need to harvest more frames really soon. The chuck of broken comb that Jessica tasted had a strong fennel taste. All the fennel down in the creek area is still in bloom.
8/20 Removed almost half a bucket's worth of comb and honey from the cottage hive. Managed to remove one of the monster frames which was still mainly uncapped but no nectar seemed to splash out. Removed other combs that were also not totally capped over. Put all of these frames in a bucket to process separately in case they ferment. We were a little surprised that there wasn't more new comb and honey in the hive as the previous harvest was 12 days ago... but perhaps the hive house is doing better with all the local fennel.
8/15 Removed 5 or 6 medium frames from the hive in the backyard. This was second biggish harvest of the year and in the 11 days since the last harvest all the frames had been drawn out again. Only really intended to inspect the hive to see that everything was okay but found lots of bees on the inner cover and a jam-packed hive.. Filled half a bucket.
8/14 Harvested honey from the organic farm beehive. Filled a 5 gallon bucket with honey and comb. The combs were mostly straight and completely capped over. Bees were really feisty! Also managed to reduce the size of the hive by removing a medium box from the top.
8/8 5 gallons from the cottage hive
8/6 Inspected the Langstroth hive in the backyard (the package from the spring) and found lots of honey had been added. The top medium box had been mainly filled out after we moved up from of honey from the last inspection, two weeks previously. Decided to harvest some of the frames as the bees needed more space for the nectar flow that seems to be in full flow at the moment. Harvested 4 or 5 medium frames from the two top medium boxes. Removed two large chucks of comb honey and crushed the remaining comb and honey into a large 2 gallon bowl, which was filled almost to the brim. Will filter out the wax later.
8/20 Removed almost half a bucket's worth of comb and honey from the cottage hive. Managed to remove one of the monster frames which was still mainly uncapped but no nectar seemed to splash out. Removed other combs that were also not totally capped over. Put all of these frames in a bucket to process separately in case they ferment. We were a little surprised that there wasn't more new comb and honey in the hive as the previous harvest was 12 days ago... but perhaps the hive house is doing better with all the local fennel.
8/15 Removed 5 or 6 medium frames from the hive in the backyard. This was second biggish harvest of the year and in the 11 days since the last harvest all the frames had been drawn out again. Only really intended to inspect the hive to see that everything was okay but found lots of bees on the inner cover and a jam-packed hive.. Filled half a bucket.
8/14 Harvested honey from the organic farm beehive. Filled a 5 gallon bucket with honey and comb. The combs were mostly straight and completely capped over. Bees were really feisty! Also managed to reduce the size of the hive by removing a medium box from the top.
8/8 5 gallons from the cottage hive
8/6 Inspected the Langstroth hive in the backyard (the package from the spring) and found lots of honey had been added. The top medium box had been mainly filled out after we moved up from of honey from the last inspection, two weeks previously. Decided to harvest some of the frames as the bees needed more space for the nectar flow that seems to be in full flow at the moment. Harvested 4 or 5 medium frames from the two top medium boxes. Removed two large chucks of comb honey and crushed the remaining comb and honey into a large 2 gallon bowl, which was filled almost to the brim. Will filter out the wax later.
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
July 2011
7/24 Inspected the hives at AL: The hive in the newer location outside the cottage is doing really well... although much of the honey is still uncapped. Decide to remove two frames of honey to free up some space. Looked in the other hive and saw similar but maybe not as much honey. Placed a new medium on top and placed the frames from the other hive in there, so that the bees could use them as guides and to give us time to sort out our harvesting equipment.
7/23 Inspected the hives in the backyard. The langstroth was doing well although the bees had not added more comb in the top box where a lone frame of honey had been placed before. Bees seem congested below so removed two frames of capped honey..... could decide how to store it while we were away in New Orleans, so put the frames back in the hive in the top box. TBH still struggling a little with not much honey.
7/10 Inspected all the hives. At the house the langstroth hive (the new package this year) was doing well. The hive consists of four mediums. The top medium has one frame of capped honey and no comb building elsewhere, the next box has lots of honey but very little capped. Briefly looked in the next box and when eggs were immediately seen we shut the hive back up.
The tbh is the same as before. Not much honey, patchy brood, and a few bees with deformed wings.
At AL the newly positioned hive was doing well, although the bees are still refusing to cap most of the honey. Looked through most of the mediums and found mostly straight combs. Briefly checked the top brood box and found eggs. Closed up the hive. The other langstroth hive was a little feisty. This is the hive that's always been feisty but recently has been fairly mellow. Look through a few mediums of uncapped honey and then abandoned the inspection.
7/4 Inspected the two monster hives at AL. Both doing well with lots of bees and honey, although the honey is still mainly uncapped.
7/3 Inspected the only Langstroth hive in the backyard which was from the package of bees at the start of the year. It now consists of 5 medium boxes, with a decent amount of honey inside. Lots of brood.
7/2 Noticed that the fennel was just starting to bloom along the creek.
7/1 With local help we moved the monster hive in the backyard to AL. Needed four people to carry it and a truck. Moved it at 7am and had it in place 20 minute later. Let them sit for 20 minutes and then opened the front door. A good few bees flew out without orienting first. These bees ended back at the house and through the day their numbers grew. Placed a box at the house and the confused bees went inside to find nothing. All the returning bees seemed to be star performers and were loaded with pollen. Placed the box back at AL the following morning. Placed grass in the hive entrance as it was opened up to stop the bees flying out without thinking. All the bees were back in the proper hive the next morning.
7/23 Inspected the hives in the backyard. The langstroth was doing well although the bees had not added more comb in the top box where a lone frame of honey had been placed before. Bees seem congested below so removed two frames of capped honey..... could decide how to store it while we were away in New Orleans, so put the frames back in the hive in the top box. TBH still struggling a little with not much honey.
7/10 Inspected all the hives. At the house the langstroth hive (the new package this year) was doing well. The hive consists of four mediums. The top medium has one frame of capped honey and no comb building elsewhere, the next box has lots of honey but very little capped. Briefly looked in the next box and when eggs were immediately seen we shut the hive back up.
The tbh is the same as before. Not much honey, patchy brood, and a few bees with deformed wings.
At AL the newly positioned hive was doing well, although the bees are still refusing to cap most of the honey. Looked through most of the mediums and found mostly straight combs. Briefly checked the top brood box and found eggs. Closed up the hive. The other langstroth hive was a little feisty. This is the hive that's always been feisty but recently has been fairly mellow. Look through a few mediums of uncapped honey and then abandoned the inspection.
7/4 Inspected the two monster hives at AL. Both doing well with lots of bees and honey, although the honey is still mainly uncapped.
7/3 Inspected the only Langstroth hive in the backyard which was from the package of bees at the start of the year. It now consists of 5 medium boxes, with a decent amount of honey inside. Lots of brood.
7/2 Noticed that the fennel was just starting to bloom along the creek.
7/1 With local help we moved the monster hive in the backyard to AL. Needed four people to carry it and a truck. Moved it at 7am and had it in place 20 minute later. Let them sit for 20 minutes and then opened the front door. A good few bees flew out without orienting first. These bees ended back at the house and through the day their numbers grew. Placed a box at the house and the confused bees went inside to find nothing. All the returning bees seemed to be star performers and were loaded with pollen. Placed the box back at AL the following morning. Placed grass in the hive entrance as it was opened up to stop the bees flying out without thinking. All the bees were back in the proper hive the next morning.
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