BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • What have you done today bee-related?

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #8291  by AdamD
 20 Jul 2020, 13:04
80 miles away?

I wonder if a colony has attempted to swarm 3 times whether it's time to do something about that queen!
 #8292  by AdamD
 20 Jul 2020, 14:03
I've got some decent nucs that I've moved into bigger 8 frame boxes however I have a few queens I want to replace, so I started on my last round of queen-raising a week ago and thought that a colony that was superceding the queen was suitable. (A collected cut-out from May/June with 7 frames of brood). They had a couple of supercedure queencells and had chucked out the queen - I saw her dead on the grass outside the entrance. Nine grafts went in. A day later there were 6 which was OK. Two days later there were just 2, which rang alarm bells; not yet sealed, I left them in. I went in to check a couple of days later - this weekend - and then there were none. I can only assume that there is a supercedure queen that snuck out before I removed the 2 supercedure queencells, although I looked through all the frames very carefully by shaking bees off them and could see no sign of an extra queencell. And they are not behaving like they have a queen compared to how they were when queenright. Time will tell. I have now made another colony queenless and will start all over again!
 #8293  by Steve 1972
 20 Jul 2020, 14:11
AdamD wrote:
20 Jul 2020, 13:04
80 miles away?

I wonder if a colony has attempted to swarm 3 times whether it's time to do something about that queen!
If the bees don't replace her themselves i will..i have had enough of swarms and swarm attempts this year to last me a life time..
 #8296  by Steve 1972
 20 Jul 2020, 16:06
I got a six frame nuc given today by a good forum member..it was wall to wall brood and desperate for a full brood box..all my drawn comb is miles away so i had to fill the space with new frames and foundation..2lt of sugar syrup was fed to them to help them draw the frames out..
 #8302  by AdamD
 21 Jul 2020, 13:31
Steve 1972 wrote:
20 Jul 2020, 16:06
I got a six frame nuc given today by a good forum member..it was wall to wall brood and desperate for a full brood box..all my drawn comb is miles away so i had to fill the space with new frames and foundation..2lt of sugar syrup was fed to them to help them draw the frames out..
One of my 6 frame nucs was bearding outside; it went into a 8 frame Paynes nuc with 2 frames of foundation; both were drawn in 2 days. Boy they needed the space!
 #8311  by NigelP
 24 Jul 2020, 12:34
Moved some hives to the moors today. Ling is just starting to flower in sheltered spots, but a week or two away elsewhere. Lots of Bell and tormentil out plus unusually lots of clover in the grassy patches.
 #8312  by Chrisbarlow
 24 Jul 2020, 21:56
Moved a nuc into a brood box

Painted some mini mated nucs
 #8317  by Chrisbarlow
 25 Jul 2020, 22:16
Mixing sugar syrup for nuc feed
 #8318  by AdamD
 26 Jul 2020, 09:46
Chrisbarlow wrote:
24 Jul 2020, 21:56
Moved a nuc into a brood box

Painted some mini mated nucs
I have bought three Abelo Mini plus nucs to see how bees perform in them as I am a bit fed up with mini-nucs tbh - overheating and absconding, too few bees, too many bees, not enough food, too much food and/or fermenting syrup; they're just too small. The plan will be to move over to the Abelo's and ditch the Apideas and Swi-Bines over time.
 #8320  by Steve 1972
 26 Jul 2020, 19:31
One of the four nucs i made last week with bought in mated Queens was Queenless with Queen cells being made...also the six frame nuc i was given last week was also Queenless with Queen cells..so i took the two of them to my main apiary and put them both into a colony that i raided last week to make up two of the nucs..that hive is now full to the gunnels with bees and brood so they can start filling the three half empty supers above there heads..
I have two laying worker colonies that where on five and six supers each so i removed just about all of them as the amount of bees in each colony will never be able to fill them..i now have a dilemma what to do with all these half filled supers..
The colony with CBPV seems to have recovered and i spotted the new 2020 Queen today and stuck a white dot on her back (what a big fat beauty she is)..i stuck a sixth super on another colony then went through another colony where the Queen keeps getting through the excluder.. i found the skinny thing and put it in the brood box and changed the excluder..

I never closed the two Queenless hives up that i moved today till 10am..the reason being is i wanted the three remaining colonies to get a few more bees in each nuc but it never went to plan lol.. most of the flying bees i left behind chose one nuc and that is now bursting with bees..so i have had to juggle them about to try and even things up a little..i also give two of the lighter nucs half a kilo of fondant each inside of a eke..i would have used sugar syrup but with them not being strong colonies the last thing i want is a wasp problem or robbing from each other..it's been a busy day but better than sat twiddling my thumbs..
  • 1
  • 122
  • 123
  • 124
  • 125
  • 126
  • 301