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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #4759  by Japey Edge
 07 Sep 2019, 17:06
Chrisbarlow wrote:
07 Sep 2019, 15:17
I've found a quick clean with a soapy solution helps deter wasps but isn't 100%> the best thing is to not spill in the first place. With Payne's nucs, a funnel has been a massive boon. With the maisemores nucs, there top feeder is excellent. Other rapid feeders are equally easy to use. I've used contact feeders and these can be a little iffy because as the syrup goes down they can leak and lose compression inside.
Yeah, I think I'll bear in mind some of the suggestions on the other thread to minimise spillage in the first place. Sick of the sight of wasps now. They just keep hovering about picking the opportune time to strike...
 #4760  by Japey Edge
 07 Sep 2019, 17:11
So today I inspected the poly nationals which were both a bit tetchy. I think there might be something on my veil that's making them angry as even when I was 6 feet away they'd favour pinging me than my cousin stood right over them. Tried to inspect the nuc but they were too tetchy for me to be bothered. Maybe it's me, maybe the weather, maybe just not a day for bees.

I did check the queen I introduced last week. She's there, she's laying, and Jazz is happy! So I dived straight in with Nigel's nuc-to-hive adaptor and stuck a sheet of newspaper between them with some tiny slits and now I play the waiting game....

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 #4776  by Chrisbarlow
 08 Sep 2019, 19:05
The bees preference for victimsight be because your suits smells of sting. Wash the suit
 #4777  by Chrisbarlow
 08 Sep 2019, 19:06
Honey stall. I'm now a happy bunny
 #4778  by Japey Edge
 08 Sep 2019, 21:30
Cheers Chris I'll stick it through the wash. That did cross my mind.
Today I had a walk about and saw what I believe to be chewed up newspaper out the front of the uniting hive! Happy days.
Now to plan the smoothest execution of getting that wooden nuc off and getting them settled as one big happy family.
 #4782  by AdamD
 09 Sep 2019, 20:05
It looks like Ivy has started to come good, with lots of yellow pollen in the corbiculae of returning workers. About time too as there's been little forage for a while now. Some colonies haven't the level of stores I would have hoped for, so feeders are on some - especially the nucs which haven't got the reserves of stores that most of bigger colonies were left with.

I have a few mini-nucs which need shaking out to boost smaller colonies; One has a 'parked' queen in which I might just keep by piling (swi-bine) mini-nucs on top of each other and gaffa taping them together. Somewhat crude but it's worked in the past. It's a bit tricky dealing with the inappropriate bee spaces in spring as you can guess, however if they survive I will then have some frames and bees to distribute into mini-nucs again for queen-rearing next year.

And I have a nuc and mini-nuc both with open queencells with queens ready to mate. The forecast for Thursday and Sunday is for 21 degrees. There are still some drones around so maybe, just maybe.
 #4786  by Chrisbarlow
 09 Sep 2019, 22:51
AdamD wrote:
09 Sep 2019, 20:05
And I have a nuc and mini-nuc both with open queencells with queens ready to mate. The forecast for Thursday and Sunday is for 21 degrees. There are still some drones around so maybe, just maybe.
good luck Adam
 #4800  by JohnB
 11 Sep 2019, 16:22
Been feeding my five hives 2:1 syrup. Bees don't seem to be able to get enough of it. Hopefully they will take in enough to see them through the Winter. The hives are feeling quite heavy when I heft them. I work on the basis of feeding early with the daytime temperature still reasonably warm so the little ladies can evaporate the water in the syrup relatively easily.
 #4801  by NigelP
 11 Sep 2019, 20:48
Not sure where you are JohnB, but would suggest be careful about overfeeding at this time of year. Queens are laying winter bees around now and need room to lay. The workers, however, will happily fill every space with feed if it's available.
It's a balancing act, a tough one to get right.
I've given about 2 1/2 litre of 2:1 (imperial measures) to most of the hives I've brought back from the moors as all are very light. BUT that is all they will get until October when I'll feed in earnest. It doesn't take them long to take down enough stores for winter...about a week. with a 10 litre Ashforth feeder filled twice.
 #4802  by AdamD
 12 Sep 2019, 08:52
JohnB, Nigel does have a point that colonies can become over-full and it's a balancing act. Having a bigger hive (brood plus super or double brood or Langstroth) does help as there is more room to manoeuvre.

Unless I have bees on double brood, I often ensure that they have a super of food over a fairly full brood box and that around the end of September, the super goes underneath the brood box with excluder removed. (Some call this nadiring). It's still not too late for bees to move things around the hive as they wish and by spring the super is invariably empty of stores and can be removed.

Nigel, you have a different practice to mine as I would feed steadily over a longer period of time rather than wait until October.
(I have to admit that I don't have enough feeders to do all at once in any case so it HAS to be done sequentially!).
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