We had a good morning building hives and frames. Thank you to Mill House Farm (http://www.mill-house-farm.co.uk/) for allowing us to hold the event in their workshop and making us feel welcome.
Below are a couple of photos taken during the session.
Bit late notice but the programme for tomorrow is:
Start 10:00am and work on the following activities:
Frame making:
20 Brood
20 Super
Equipment Repair
Have selection of brood and super boxes
2 Nucs
Roof needs metal and tlc
Build hives
Have full Caddon and Thornes seconds hive to be built from ground up
Own equipment
Anyone with own equipment for building are welcome.
The location is:
Mill House Farm, Risborough Rd, Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire HP22 5XL
If you travel from Stoke Mandeville towards Princess Risborough it is on the left just after the goats centre.
See you tomorrow
Last Saturday we completed an inspection of the colonies missed on Wednesday.
We finished off the Bailey comb change on hive 1, it had a queen cell in the bottom box with sealed brood and a lot of bees, so we turned the bottom box into a Nuc, added a frame from hive with open queen cells and moved the box to the nursery.
On Wednesday we had our first beginners group and were able to go through 4 hives. At the same time we tried to go to the next stage in the miller method of queen rearing, however the queen in our breeder colony was no more. Luckily colony 2 had three good frames with quality sealed queen cells, two frames were removed to populate hive 7 (deceased queen) and create a new Nuc.
Two weeks into the training season and we are already at 16 boxes, although to date we have not progressed beyond 8 queen right colonies. Next week should see this change with a couple of colonies due to become queen right J
It was a busy evening again and luckily the weather was good, all be it a little chilly by the end of the evening.
We started by initiating queen rearing employing the Miller Technique. We chose Hive 7 as our breeder and host colony as it was strong with bees on all of the frames in the Brood and Super boxes. On opening the hive we discovered open Queen Cells so obviously the colony was preparing to swarm, an ideal situation for rearing queens. The queen was removed to a nucleus with along with 2 frames of brood a fresh frame of foundation cut into Miller V’s and a frame feeder. All queen cells were torn down in hive and nucleus and the nucleus was removed to the Nursery for the Miller frame to be drawn out and the queen to lay in. In up to 7 days we should have suitable larvae to transfer the frame back into the original hive for queen cells to be raised.
Hive 9 we intended carrying out an artificial swarm but first we practiced clipping queens by using drones available from the colony. Once we started to look for the queen we found sealed swarm cells and luckily the queen. The queen and a couple of frames were placed in the new hive and the supers placed on that hive. As we had queen cells on two distinct frames and sufficient bees we created two Nucleus colonies and transferred them to the Nursery. Attached are notes on carrying out an artificial swarm, this method can be used for swarm control, making increase and varroa management of an infested colony. The same basic method applies to each requirement.
We carried out a full disease inspection Hive 3 which is coming towards the end of a Bailey comb change. In doing so we discovered sealed swarm cells in the bottom brood box, this was moved to another stand and made up to a complete hive.
Finally last week we placed the bottom brood box from hive 6 in the Nursery to let it create emergency queen cells, it has produced 6 across two frames. As we had seen enough queen cells on this visit it was good to compare swarm and emergency cells. Swarm are generally large and peanut shaped generally along the edge of the frame in large numbers whilst emergency queen cells are small and on the face of the brood frame and have been drawn from worker cells.
The Apiary currently has 8 queen right colonies and 5 colonies with sealed queen cells, it is going to busier with the rape now in full flower all around!
Last week when inspecting the colonies on Tuesday we tore down several queen cells in Hive 2 and rearranged things so that the colony had more space. The next full inspection was not due for a further 9 days so on Monday (7 days on) a quick inspection was carried out. The queen was seen but there were several good swarm cells just about to be capped.
A nucleus box was placed next to the hive with the entrance facing the opposite direction. The frame with the queen on was placed in the Nuc along with four further frames from the main hive containing stores and all stages of brood. Queen cells on the frames transferred to the Nuc were torn down. The brood frames in the main hive were placed together in the centre of the brood box and flanked by fresh frames.
By removing the queen we have prevented a swarm issuing until at least when the 1st virgin queen emerges (8 days after queen cell capped) and by reducing the brood the colony may now not swarm due to the lack of young bees.
Positioning the Nuc box close to the original hive maintains our options for what to do with the colony and the original queen.
At the next inspection we may split the main hive again if we have sufficient good sealed swarm cells, further reducing the chance of a swarm issuing and hopefully resulting in an additional small colony for use during the busy training programme this summer.
It has been an early spring this year and there are reports from several members of colonies swarming already, we were lucky in being able to save the queen and prevent a swarm issuing. At this time of year one should carry out inspections every 7 days and if a colony starts swarm preparations carry out preventative measures such as an artificial swarm.
