What have you done today bee-related?

[JoJo36]

I have my 4 hives, (hopefully 3 soon) at home but check them "very often" normally so I don't get swarms although I was caught out just over a week ago with the sneaky bees making more queen cells after I left them 2 nice ones?!
Luckily my neighbours were very understanding and weren't too worried about the small swarm in their apple tree as I explained that even if I hadn't collected them, they would have more than likely left the following day!
They are half way down the garden roughly 5-60 feet away so hopefully fingers crossed they will behave??!!
If I had an out apiary I would drive there and end up forgetting stuff all the time, getting very frustrated with the whole experience and would probably end up giving up beekeeping??!!

[AdamD]

If you have bees that sting you in your own garden - and usually its one colony of wrong 'uns, then they do need to be moved, for your own comfort and peace of mind. And if one colony takes a few minutes to 'settle down' after an inspection, then you do need to be mindful of when you inpspect - or move that away. If you can sit and watch them by the hive entrance and they take no notice of you, I would say that your bees are fine.
And has been pointed out, many people don't know a bee from a wasp or a beetle (yes I had someone take a photo of a beetle and thought it was a honeybee). Not sure if the neighbour is knowledgeable enough to tell the difference. Or if they know how to behave around insects. Flapping your arms is not the best policy!

[AdamD]

I had some apiary fun on Thursday at my out apiary.
1) In my quest to see what virgins had mated, I checked an Abello mini-plus nuc and disappointingly, there was not a bee in sight. What had happened to them? They should have had a reasonable amount of bees inside an a virgin queen. However, a while later I opened a polynuc looking for a couple of spare brood frames which were somewhere around the apiary and there were quite a few bees inside on a couple of random super frames that had been left in there. I didn't think much of it and thought it must be bees desperate for anything and robbing anything they thought might be there. (OSR is finished and there's not much forage about atm). I continued my hunt for frames...
The next day I checked again and the bees had settled down, there was a little nectar in the frames which would have gone if the hive had been robbed, and lo and behold, eggs and then a mated queen. My best guess is that a mating swarm decided that this was a better bet than the (Abello) hive they came out of. The quantity of bees would be 'about right' for that.

2) Where did that swarm come from? On the same day I was about to leave the apiary and noticed a decent sized swarm in a hedge. I shook the bees into a swarm box, left the queen excluder over the entrance so the queen could not get out and left them be. I could see that the bees were fanning at the entrance so the queen was there. I now needed to check where the swarm came from and so re-lit my smoker and looked at the 5 full-sized colonies that were at the apiary. All had clipped queens (although I have occasionally not clipped enough) so I looked through and was late home. All had queens present and no queencells. So it looks like I have some free bees, although they ignored the bait hive that was 150 metres away.
The following morning at 5 am I happened to wake early, so I took myself off to the apiary and moved the swarm box to a more suitable location. They are now squeezed into a 6 frame nuc. I think they'll need more space.

[AdamD]

I have my 4 hives, (hopefully 3 soon) at home but check them "very often" normally so I don't get swarms although I was caught out just over a week ago with the sneaky bees making more queen cells after I left them 2 nice ones?!
Luckily my neighbours were very understanding and weren't too worried about the small swarm in their apple tree as I explained that even if I hadn't collected them, they would have more than likely left the following day!
They are half way down the garden roughly 5-60 feet away so hopefully fingers crossed they will behave??!!
If I had an out apiary I would drive there and end up forgetting stuff all the time, getting very frustrated with the whole experience and would probably end up giving up beekeeping??!!

Bees can continue to make queencells after you have told them not to. It's always worth double-checking a few days later. Unless the colony is rather small, I only leave one queencell otherwise there's a risk that the first queen out will leave with a swarm.

Your point about an out apiary is valid. It took me a while to 'get used' to having one and I still forget stuff all the time! So I generally have loads of spare things piled up on a pallet so I can act quickly if needed as I have something that will get me out of trouble whenever an emergency happens. I am not too worried about summer rain getting on any hive parts that might occasionally get wet, as long as they are put away for winter.

[JoJo36]

I do also think that when the bees have a new queen or when the weather is thundery all my hives seem a bit tetchy when otherwise they are generally fine?!
Yesterday I had to get a new strap underneath the paving slab which one of the hives sits on and the vibration or the sawing action before it was in place got a few bees annoyed as they kept landing on the new strap possibly not liking the colour orange??!!:)

[Spike]

Thunder can make bees tetchy I believe.

[Alfred]

I had one lot of lively bees that would attack the orange mower but not the red one.

[JoJo36]

That's really strange!
Perhaps orange is really not 'their colour'??!!
It's unfortunate that they now have orange straps on a couple of hives!!
I'll get a tin of paint out while they are sleeping!!

[Alfred]

No more spray tans either

[AdamD]

I believe that bees have a different colour spectrum than us humans, so red would be seen as black (or not seen maybe?) so orange may be more visible to them.
I think that if you need to inspect at night, it's a red light you should use.