What have you done today bee-related?

[AdamD]

A check on a 2024 queen was on my list for Saturday as I knew the brood chamber was full of brood two weeks previously will all 11 frames laid up. (I had stolen a frame from it a couple of weeks before and replaced it with foundation). However at 11 on Saturday morning as I was at the apiary, the colony swarmed, which I caught in a nuc box with queen excluder on the entrance to keep the queen in. Within the colony there were sealed queencells which were faily advanced and the frame of foundation had hardly been touched.
On Sunday morning I created a Demaree with the brood box above the 6 supers and the queen and swarm in a new brood box on the floor over a queen excluder, to keep her in. However within the nuc box was a small piece of hanging comb that had been drawn overnight and eggs had already been laid. That's pretty quick! I think ther reason for swarming was that there was just no room at the inn and she didn't really want to go. I usually clip my queens but often I leave it until autumn as queens don't usually swarm when young!

[DianeBees]

Weird one yesterday morning. Drove down track which is just inside a forest to where I have an apiary site in an adjacent field. Parked truck and was met by a small cloud of bees. To all intents and purposes like a mini swarm, they settled at the bottom of an oak tree, there couldn't have been more than 100 bees. Only thing I can think of it's a small cast swarm from a feral colony. Will see if they are still around next visit.

Were they workers or drones?

We had a gang of drones lurking on the huge tree outside and then we'd seen a queen being chased!

[NigelP]

Workers.

[JoJo36]

After taking off some honey this year (1 third of last year but still happy) 95lbs total for 3 hives, 1 hive being super slow,
I've now put the wet supers back and the bees seem to be putting back a little honey in the frames which is annoying as I want to leave just 1 brood box to fill up for winter and I'm wondering whether to stack all the mostly empty but having little bits of honey supers into one pile and leaving a small entrance something like a snelgrove at the bottom to allow the bees to go in, eat and come out??!! If I add a crown board and roof, do you think it will cause a frenzy or due to the one small entrance, keep them under control??!! Hmmmmm.............

[NigelP]

should work fine and if it does cause some frenzy, free honey often does, just give them a bigger entrance until they've cleaned the lot.

[JoJo36]

Thanks Nigel!!

[AdamD]

A check on a 2024 queen was on my list for Saturday as I knew the brood chamber was full of brood two weeks previously will all 11 frames laid up. (I had stolen a frame from it a couple of weeks before and replaced it with foundation). However at 11 on Saturday morning as I was at the apiary, the colony swarmed, which I caught in a nuc box with queen excluder on the entrance to keep the queen in. Within the colony there were sealed queencells which were faily advanced and the frame of foundation had hardly been touched.
On Sunday morning I created a Demaree with the brood box above the 6 supers and the queen and swarm in a new brood box on the floor over a queen excluder, to keep her in. However within the nuc box was a small piece of hanging comb that had been drawn overnight and eggs had already been laid. That's pretty quick! I think ther reason for swarming was that there was just no room at the inn and she didn't really want to go. I usually clip my queens but often I leave it until autumn as queens don't usually swarm when young!

An update on this swarm. I had assumed that the 'old' queen (A May 2024 model) had left the hive in a swarm. However upon checking through a few days later, I was surprised to find the old marked queen with the brood at the top of the hive (in the demaree bit) and eggs in the brood box at the bottom of the hive. I didn't see the queen there; I'll have to look later. The old marked queen had very nibbled wings so my guess is that the bees were encouraging her to swarm by nibbling her wings but her already laying daughter decided to go instead. Although there were queencells in the hive, some of which were close to opening. A strange one.

[AdamD]

This bait hive was empty 2 weeks ago. Some comb has already fallen off as I disturbed it and it's new, soft and warm . Haven't they done well! The comb has a distinct yellow hue from whatever they are bringing in. Usually dandelion gives yellow wax but it's the wrong time of year for that. Any ideas?

[NigelP]

Ragwort? There is more about in my area this year than I've ever seen.

On a side note took hives to 2 sites on the moors yesterday. Heather is well out on one but a bit behind on the othere. Heather beetle has been causing large swathes of heather to disappear.photos to follow.

[AdamD]

Yes, it could be ragwort there's loads about here too. If my (very old) microscope had not seized up, I might have tried to have a look. My colonies have loads and loads of bright pollen in the frames too - almost too much.