I am now a Beekeeper!!

[dickymint]

Nimby said:

dickymint said:

Day two ...

That long? They'll be preparing to swarm !

Hope so, would be nice to get the FlowHive up and running this season

[Slackline]

Great stuff! I'll be watching this with interest as I've just assembled a National for the Mrs. She's been on a short course just before all this CV19, but hasn't been able to progress to getting any bees yet unfortunately.

We discussed the idea of buying a nuc earlier but didn't really decide whether to or not. Be good to see how you get on with yours.

[dickymint]

Wifeys first experience up close to Bees............and brakes the first rule i taught her

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kpRTS4mgD0

[anonymous-user]

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1262926051036053508...

Mental bee hive !

[dickymint]

So a week after they were hived I did my first ever inspection. Now just to recap I have never handled bees before so apart from Youtube and a handful of classroom lessons i'd no idea what to expect. My plan was to look for signs that the Queen was laying (didn't matter if i saw her or not) and had they expanded and drawn out the new frames.

Here's a prelim video and sarcy commentary shot by Wifey ........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwlIAiKKAQs&t=...

And one of my chest camera vid - can you spot the Queen? Can't believe i didn't..............

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZabaWD9AaM

Looking back on all the videos we took (i wont bore you with them all) I felt quite proud of getting this far on my own even though i spotted loads of errors i made. My two concerns are the lack of expansion to new frames and lack of nectar stored.

I have a cunning plan though!

[Nimby]

I've never seen inside a WBC hive - were you just looking at a super? There' didn't seem to be many bees for a brood box.

[Jambo85]

dickymint said:

So a week after they were hived I did my first ever inspection. Now just to recap I have never handled bees before so apart from Youtube and a handful of classroom lessons i'd no idea what to expect. My plan was to look for signs that the Queen was laying (didn't matter if i saw her or not) and had they expanded and drawn out the new frames.

Here's a prelim video and sarcy commentary shot by Wifey ........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwlIAiKKAQs&t=...

And one of my chest camera vid - can you spot the Queen? Can't believe i didn't..............

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZabaWD9AaM

Looking back on all the videos we took (i wont bore you with them all) I felt quite proud of getting this far on my own even though i spotted loads of errors i made. My two concerns are the lack of expansion to new frames and lack of nectar stored.

I have a cunning plan though!

Nice one dicky, enjoyable isn't it How you missed the queen is beyond me too 90% of the time she'll be on the dark side of the frame so look there first, although you've separated all the frames it looks like so that doesn't mean much. You soon won't be able to do that so practice gently moving frames around with only the dummy removed from the box.

I have some quick pointers for you which I hope you'll find helpful:
1. As far as I can tell on the video the queen has her wings intact - I'm a great believer in clipping queens particularly if you live in a built up area. Combined with other swarm prevention/control it will greatly reduce the chances of a prime swarming ending up in a neighbour's chimney.
2.They don't need that super, they will likely do better in the long run if you remove it for another couple of weeks until some more brood has emerged, all it is doing now is losing heat.
3. You're right they have bugger all stores.
4. Bees do not naturally expand outwards, especially quite a small number of bees (sorry!) in the middle of a big box, so no surprise that the new frames have not been drawn.
5. What is frame no. 9?? Does it have plywood in the frame!?

They don't have much of a foraging force and drawing and laying up 5 new frames of foundation is a big ask for a small colony.

To address 3 and 4 I suggest you feed them some 1:1 syrup (1kg syrup to 1L water) and see what they do. Also - be careful doing this if it's going to be cold (it is here) but contrary to common opinion you CAN split the nest and get away with it especially if there is a flow on (or if feeding, same thing to a bee) but if you pop a sheet of foundation in the middle of the nest and feed them, you will find it drawn out and laid up in a week. Then more brood will have emerged and you could move another two frames in and perhaps think about replacing the super if they've got the bees to move into it. Do this another couple of times and the box will be drawn out, and there will be piles of brood.

One frame of brood = 3 frames of bees when emerged, you'll be amazed in a few weeks...

[dickymint]

Nimby said:

I've never seen inside a WBC hive - were you just looking at a super? There' didn't seem to be many bees for a brood box.

First vid is looking at the top super/shallow (but it's not actually a super as there's no Queen excluder in place). It's basically set up as a "brood and a half" as i'd like them to expand into a strong colony as quick as they can with the hope to split them into two and put one lot into the FlowHive. I've no plan to take honey for myself this year.

A WBC is exactly the same, more or less, as a National - it just has outer lifts that give extra insulation.

[dickymint]

Jambo85 said:

dickymint said:

So a week after they were hived I did my first ever inspection. Now just to recap I have never handled bees before so apart from Youtube and a handful of classroom lessons i'd no idea what to expect. My plan was to look for signs that the Queen was laying (didn't matter if i saw her or not) and had they expanded and drawn out the new frames.

Here's a prelim video and sarcy commentary shot by Wifey ........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwlIAiKKAQs&t=...

And one of my chest camera vid - can you spot the Queen? Can't believe i didn't..............

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZabaWD9AaM

Looking back on all the videos we took (i wont bore you with them all) I felt quite proud of getting this far on my own even though i spotted loads of errors i made. My two concerns are the lack of expansion to new frames and lack of nectar stored.

I have a cunning plan though!

Nice one dicky, enjoyable isn't it How you missed the queen is beyond me too 90% of the time she'll be on the dark side of the frame so look there first, although you've separated all the frames it looks like so that doesn't mean much. You soon won't be able to do that so practice gently moving frames around with only the dummy removed from the box.

I have some quick pointers for you which I hope you'll find helpful:
1. As far as I can tell on the video the queen has her wings intact - I'm a great believer in clipping queens particularly if you live in a built up area. Combined with other swarm prevention/control it will greatly reduce the chances of a prime swarming ending up in a neighbour's chimney.
2.They don't need that super, they will likely do better in the long run if you remove it for another couple of weeks until some more brood has emerged, all it is doing now is losing heat.
3. You're right they have bugger all stores.
4. Bees do not naturally expand outwards, especially quite a small number of bees (sorry!) in the middle of a big box, so no surprise that the new frames have not been drawn.
5. What is frame no. 9?? Does it have plywood in the frame!?

They don't have much of a foraging force and drawing and laying up 5 new frames of foundation is a big ask for a small colony.

To address 3 and 4 I suggest you feed them some 1:1 syrup (1kg syrup to 1L water) and see what they do. Also - be careful doing this if it's going to be cold (it is here) but contrary to common opinion you CAN split the nest and get away with it especially if there is a flow on (or if feeding, same thing to a bee) but if you pop a sheet of foundation in the middle of the nest and feed them, you will find it drawn out and laid up in a week. Then more brood will have emerged and you could move another two frames in and perhaps think about replacing the super if they've got the bees to move into it. Do this another couple of times and the box will be drawn out, and there will be piles of brood.

One frame of brood = 3 frames of bees when emerged, you'll be amazed in a few weeks...

You've pre-emptied my "cunning plan" with 3 and 4 there has indeed been quite a change in the last 3/4 days

Many thanks i'll try to answer your other thoughts and questions later and show the changes seen yesterday

[Jambo85]

Good stuff - look forward to the update. I'm just going to remove some honey from mine that are on the oil seed rape. It's turned cold here and it'll crystalise if I don't get it extracted very soon!

[dickymint]

Jambo85 said:

Good stuff - look forward to the update. I'm just going to remove some honey from mine that are on the oil seed rape. It's turned cold here and it'll crystalise if I don't get it extracted very soon!

As it happens i've just been linked to a short video taken yesterday by a guy I chat with on the Flow Hive UK group page
- shows him harvesting 2 x frames of (fully capped) OSR honey from his Flow super..............

https://www.facebook.com/jamie.bruce.94/videos/101...

[Nimby]

Jambo85 said:

Good stuff - look forward to the update. I'm just going to remove some honey from mine that are on the oil seed rape. It's turned cold here and it'll crystalise if I don't get it extracted very soon!

Good luck. We extracted about 10 days ago during the heatwave and only just in the nick of time - some was already starting to granulate.

[dickymint]

Nimby said:

Jambo85 said:

Good stuff - look forward to the update. I'm just going to remove some honey from mine that are on the oil seed rape. It's turned cold here and it'll crystalise if I don't get it extracted very soon!

Good luck. We extracted about 10 days ago during the heatwave and only just in the nick of time - some was already starting to granulate.

Is it "luck" though? Was yours capped and how long for? Could you have harvested it earlier? Is it down to logistics?

Hopefully these are all questions i can eventually answer myself but i suspect it's all down to where hives are located and how quickly keepers can react?

[Jambo85]

dickymint said:

Nimby said:

Jambo85 said:

Good stuff - look forward to the update. I'm just going to remove some honey from mine that are on the oil seed rape. It's turned cold here and it'll crystalise if I don't get it extracted very soon!

Good luck. We extracted about 10 days ago during the heatwave and only just in the nick of time - some was already starting to granulate.

Is it "luck" though? Was yours capped and how long for? Could you have harvested it earlier? Is it down to logistics?

Hopefully these are all questions i can eventually answer myself but i suspect it's all down to where hives are located and how quickly keepers can react?

Thanks Nimby. I dealt with 90kg of it on Monday and while a few cells were crystallised the majority was fine.

Dicky, only my second year dealing with it but it’s a very difficult balance it seems. It’s very often too late if it’s capped, if it’s not capped it might be too wet, and you don’t want to take it off before the rape flow is done or you contaminate your next supers with the sodding stuff and what should be your runny summer honey crystallises as well...! Then there’s shortages of empty supers and clearing boards and other parts of life which get in the way!

I have the added challenge up here of (often) low night time temperatures while the rape is in flower which doesn’t help.

[Nimby]

dickymint said:

Is it "luck" though? Was yours capped and how long for? Could you have harvested it earlier? Is it down to logistics?

Hopefully these are all questions i can eventually answer myself but i suspect it's all down to where hives are located and how quickly keepers can react?

No it wasn't capped but it didn't drip when the frame was shaken. A cheap uncalibrated Ebay refractometer said water content was 20% so we decided to take it off rather than have it crystallize in the frame.

[dickymint]

Thanks for the help and support guys it's really appreciated

So my "cunning plan" like i said my concerns after the first full inspection was the lack of food stores and empty frames. At the same time I was given a link to a Keeper some of you may know, Mel Gwenyn Gruffyd Honey, about a DEFRA warning about the recent drought and the effects on food supplies. He was advising to feed bees now. Like I said it was on my mind to put a feeder above the crown board anyway in the hope it would attract them upstairs and do some bloody work

I put 1kg of Apimix in (yes i know it's bloody expensive but hey-ho only the best for my Girls) and monitored it for the day hoping I wasn't just fattening up greedy Drones! It was almost gone within 12 hours. Two days on I went in to check and to decide wether to put another 1kg in and got Wifey to video it. Apologies for the commentary........sarcy cow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuBdvhs2vHw&t=...

At least 5 frames fully drawn and even some nectar Amazed at what they can do in just a few days. That was some experience seeing my first ever "home grown" fully drawn comb held up to the sunshine in the US of K (do you see what i did there )

Time will tell if/when Her Majesty decides to pay a visit. Watch this space as they say.

[Evanivitch]

I don't think the drought has affected plants much to date, however we are entering the June gap, so unless you've got any crop flowering nearby you do tend to see a drop in available stores around now before the summer bloom is in full effect.

[dickymint]

Evanivitch said:

I don't think the drought has affected plants much to date, however we are entering the June gap, so unless you've got any crop flowering nearby you do tend to see a drop in available stores around now before the summer bloom is in full effect.

I'm off out for walk in a moment to check on the Brambles as i have a few already in bloom in my garden.

[Jambo85]

dickymint said:

Thanks for the help and support guys it's really appreciated

So my "cunning plan" like i said my concerns after the first full inspection was the lack of food stores and empty frames. At the same time I was given a link to a Keeper some of you may know, Mel Gwenyn Gruffyd Honey, about a DEFRA warning about the recent drought and the effects on food supplies. He was advising to feed bees now. Like I said it was on my mind to put a feeder above the crown board anyway in the hope it would attract them upstairs and do some bloody work

I put 1kg of Apimix in (yes i know it's bloody expensive but hey-ho only the best for my Girls) and monitored it for the day hoping I wasn't just fattening up greedy Drones! It was almost gone within 12 hours. Two days on I went in to check and to decide wether to put another 1kg in and got Wifey to video it. Apologies for the commentary........sarcy cow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuBdvhs2vHw&t=...

At least 5 frames fully drawn and even some nectar Amazed at what they can do in just a few days. That was some experience seeing my first ever "home grown" fully drawn comb held up to the sunshine in the US of K (do you see what i did there )

Time will tell if/when Her Majesty decides to pay a visit. Watch this space as they say.

Excellent - meant to say earlier do you have the equipment to make your WBC double brood? With what you have planned it’s a much better idea than brood and a half. The only acceptable reason to go brood and a half IMO is if you have difficulty lifting heavy stuff!

[rxe]

Feeding depends on location - we’re taking honey off this w/e - some hives have 7 supers on. Thankfully zero spring OSR around us, but we have summer OSR just about to bloom, which will make it interesting.

IMO brood and a half is to be avoided at all costs. It is a total pain on those few occasions when you do need to find the Queen. If you want to build another colony, then simply wait till they get smarmy (will be a while yet, especially with a cold super up top), and do and artificial swarm (or two). Voila, >1 hive, with none of the double brood hassle.

Absolutely agree on putting an undrawn frame in the middle of a nest while a flow is on (or feeding). Courses seem to advise against it, but it works very well.

Don’t worry about finding the Queen - at this time of the year, you only need to look for eggs (= she’s still there) and queen cells.