Williams Bees

Taking off the Rape

2006-06-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

I'm busy at the moment, so had been putting off taking of the rape supers. Which of course just makes it worse.

But this afternoon was warm and I finally knuckled down to it. 4 supers in all, most with some crystallisation but not too bad. Get the extractor I have a 1/3 share in, annoyed that my co-owner has slightly bent it (straighten) and left it wet (clean and dry it). I could have done without those two.

In the evening, extract, with the help of my kids; get it practically full, so thats judged just about right. And then return the supers to the bees, just as it starts raining.

And all without getting stung once!

One good, one bad

2006-05-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

Worried about solid rape in the hives, so today I had a look at 2/3 of them.

Small hive turns out to have no obvious brood... oops. Well it may recover I suppose.

2nd hive has brood, and a fair amount of stores, but still seems reasonably liquid. So I don't think I need to hurry about extracting it. Might do it tomorrow, time and the tide suiting.

Phone John Rayner, CBKA, to see if they still want my 2nd hive, and they do, so he will probably come to collect tomorrow evening. Which will be a bit more free time for me!

Waking up

2006-05-18T13:43:00.000-07:00

First post of the year. Its been a cold start to the year and I haven't done much.

About 2 weeks ago I looked into my two main hives, and removed 3 brood comb from each. This was a Cunning Plan on my part. It was based on the idea of replacing some comb each year, to prevent them becomming to old, warped, and disease prone. But I also thought, aha, that will knock them back a little and maybe they won't swarm.

I didn't do it to hive 3, and lo and behold yesterday ago I had a swarm. Which I recaptured, offered to the CBKA, and then today it had gone. Hey ho.

The Larder at Barton has sold 20 jars of my honey and wants some more, how splendid. And an enquiry from the National Trust.

Removing apistan

2005-11-12T12:20:00.000-08:00

Last task of the year (perhaps): I removed the apistan strips from hives 1 and 2 (they had been in since sept 14th, so now was about right. A warm and nearly windless day. The bees flying, a bit, and I thought I wouldn't see a better day this year.

FAO recipes

2005-10-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

Not my bees, but this:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/w0076e/w0076e20.htm.

"Bee sweets and chocolate coated bees"... perhaps I should try. But should the bees be fresh or dried?

Jarring Honey

2005-09-16T14:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I put up 8 lbs (heated honey from various. Looked OK).

Today I have jarred about 16 lb unheated, from the last extraction. That will be the last of the year.

Apistan and return supers

2005-09-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Today (about 5 pm, but it was a warm day) I:

- removed the single apistan strip from hive 3 (bang on time). Hive looks good. Also gave it one of the spun supers for luck.

- put two apistan strips into each of hives 1 and 2 (hive 1 got the other spun super). Bees rather annoyed with this but they didn't get me ha ha. Two were Nikolas (dated 2005/12) and two from JR (undated, but I assume long: the two spare from him I put back in Nikolas packet, so the date looks wrong. Beware). Hive 1, 2 both vigourous though 1 only has brood across 5-6 frames. Shuffle those about into the centre a bit.

- replaced the crown board on hive 2 because it was falling to bits and needs repair: over winter.

- sold £5 (2 jars, runny) to a woman who called by.

Still to do: decant the honey in the extractor.

The picture isn't random: someone asked my permission to use it in an Agricultural Sciences textbook! I said yes, if you send me a copy of the book.

Spinning

2005-09-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

Today I spin the 2 supers taken off yesterday. One is very dark (honey and wax) the other light (presumably borage). Both have been robbed somewhat, and the end result is only about one supers worth. D and E both help happily.

A bit more honey; a bit of a mess!

2005-09-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

Home at 6pm; decide to see if I can take off the top two supers of hive 1 that were clearer-boarded... oh, about a week ago now. Oops. You shouldn't leave them on for a week, cos the bees find a way in, and... err, there they are, clustered around a teensy hole they have dug in the corner. Ahem.

So, top off (farewell to any idea of doing this quickly) and poke around. Some robbing, but maybe not too bacd. Go through all 4 supers and decide that taking the top 2 off is about OK; somehow do this withou annoying the girls too much.

Intended to spin tonight but my co-owner of the spinner has done a shamefully bad job of cleaning it, so I do it again, but it won't be dry tonight. Hey ho, I have other things to do.

I have on order from John Rayner (Springwell Apiaries, john.rayner (at) dial.pipex.com, 01799 531014) some Apistan strips (for two hives: he will split them up), maybe do that tomorrow. Seems a bit late in the year (I always am) but he says I'm not the latest.

A look and some clearer boards. Summer ending?

2005-09-05T14:53:00.000-07:00

Its getting to the end of summer. On sunday I got 2 apistan strips from Nicola but I need two more. I see that the small hive got its one strip on July 21st so its about time to take that out. In a day or two.

So: hive 2 is OK, but not a lot of honey stored after the last take-off, and of that little capped. Leave them in peace. Hive 1 has maybe 1 1/2 supers, so clearer-board that, swapping the heavy supers to the top. *Must* get some proper crown boards, or do some maintenance: the one for hive 2 is falling apart. Hive 3: seems vigorous enough, but plenty of space.

Soir: melt down the honey/wax mixture. Scrape out and clean the extractor.

2005-08-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

The pic is looking down onto a super full of frames full of honey. The wavy pattern is cute but as anyone in the know will know, somewhat undesirable: really the bees should be pulling the frames equally, and having a pattern like than means you can't shuffle the frames around.

Today I took off the 4 supers that I had clearer-boarded on... sunday? Hive 2 was a success: nearly clear. Hive 1 was less good and I had to flick bees around. Sorry girls. However the end product was a wheelbarrow full of honey...

My technique now is to offload into the wheelbarrow, wheel it up the garden, take the frames out onto a table in the garden room and then go off and have dinner and process in the evening. Miranda helped for the first few before going off to bed; Daniel helped for some more; then I was left alone. In the end I ran out of time and only processed 3 supers, I'll have to dump #4 back on the hives for the while. But the main point was to give them more room, which they will get. Perhaps I'll split the still-full frames half-half between the hives. yes, that sounds like a good idea.

Total honey production... not sure. I had to empty about 10 kg out into a bucket because the extractor (3 frame tangenital) filled up, so 30 kg at least, perhaps 40-50 if I've done well. Not sure. All nice and runny and probably mostly borage.

Clearer boards

2005-07-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

I decided to bite the bullet and extract some honey before I go on hols. So today I put clearer boards onto the two main hives. The main difficulty here is lifting off the top two supers on each hive because they are (pleasingly) so heavy with honey they are nearly unliftable.

In the course of this I annoyed a few bees, but thats tough for them. Which brings me to... how many beekeepers feel affection for their bees? I do sometimes, but not usually when I'm working with them, because they're usually doing their best to sting me. Possibly this is due to my heavy-handedness: if I was better, they would be nicer.

BTW, for those who don't know, a clearer board is a crown board with holes for "bee escapes" in it. You put it under the supers you want to clear. The bees can then go one way (down) into the hives and so in theory when, two days later, you come to remove the supers they are clear of bees entirely. In practice I find that it works, but not 100%. Sometimes it works somewhat badly, in that there are still bees up there, but the poor dears, having been deprived of water for a few days, are in apoor state anyway. How long can a bee live without water I wonder.

The photo shows my gloves and suit, and in the background the ever-handy strimmer (or "weed whacker" as the more imaginative americans call them). No, I don't have 3 hands, I have a second pair of gloves, the first one having developed the odd hole, and beekeeping with duck tape stuck over holes in gloves is scary.

A 4th super for hive 1

2005-07-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I finally found time to make up another 9 frames and to put the super onto "hive 1", which formerly had 3 supers on. Good. Now I'm out of spare supers. The photo shows "before".

The new super goes below the top 2 supers. I couldn't put it under the top 3, as number 3 still has brood in it from having the queen there until last week.

Hive 1 looks pretty wonky in that photo. It isn't quite that wonky in real life, though I may get round to straightening it sometime. The photo also shows that the bits beyond are rather overgrown...

Apistan and a new super

2005-07-21T12:45:00.000-07:00

Today I put in a single Apistan strip into the number 3 hive as Lindsay recommended yesterday. Hopefully that will clear them up.

Then, after dinner, I sat on the back doorstep making up 9 frames to fill a super, with E and D watching and helping a bit. This takes... maybe half an hour. They are the sort-of self-spacing sort, but since I'm only putting 9 into a super they don't self-. Anyway, put the super into #2, only just about managing to lift off the 2 full supers to get the new one underneath.

I forgot to mention: yesterday: Lindsay was bemoaning the fact that I had borage honey coming out of my ears (so to speak) and not enough supers to put on, whereas he (who has been good and put new supers on) wasn't close enough.

Visit from the Bee Inspector

2005-07-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

Lindsay, the bee inspector, came round. He's a good chap and last time he came, about 3-4 years ago, he rescued one of my hives for me.

Since taking off the rape at the start of june I don't think I've done anything to the bees, they've just been getting on with it.

This time he doesn't need to do too much rescuing. The hive that will now get called number 1 was a new swarm this year that I somehow got the queen in the wrong place for - she ended up in a super. Oops. Lindsay finds her for me and I get to see her for the first time, before he carefully puts her into the broodbox. Sadly I can't find my queen-marking pen in the hurry. The only other thing wrong with this hive is that its stuffed full of honey to overflowing, probably borage says L because its very pale and the wax is white.

Hive 2 - the one that overwintered - is fine, but again full. In fact we can barely lift the two supers off. L tells me to get some more supers on in a hurry. The brood box has a bit too much honey in it, so L swaps two pure-honey frames to either end, in the hope that I can replace the comb next spring.

Hive 3 is the small young swarm that I wasn't sure had a queen. It does have one now, because there is fresh brood, and a fair number of bees. But it has varroa, so I'll need to put in an apistan strip.

Last of all L gives me a new booklet on some dread mite, but since (as he says) it hasn't reached Europe let alone the UK yet so I'm not too bothered.

Welcome

2005-07-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to yet another blog by me. This one is about bees, since I'm a beekeeper. See-also http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/bees/. I don't expect to update it too often, just when I do stuff. It probably won't be terribly interesting to anyone else, its mostly a notebook for me.