After a bit of hive husbandry and swapping frames between a couple of hives and nucs, shaking in some nurse bees etc I have done what I think will be the last grafts for this year. 20 grafts gone into a starter colony, with a frame of soon to emerge brood and some nurse bees … Continue reading Planning ahead
New Queen, New Palace
I moved the nucleus colony with my new breeder queen into a full-sized hive today, it was too hot to wear a bee suit or jacket, so I wore just a hat and face veil. I'm pleased to say that even though my smoker was lit, and on standby, I did not have to use … Continue reading New Queen, New Palace
Queens All Doing Well
I inspected all the hives and nucs in my garden apiary today, all looking good I'm happy to say. The queens from my own queen rearing programme are all doing very well, with nice solid, healthy looking brood pattern. I also introduced 2 new virgin queens into nucs, hopefully they'll be out on their mating … Continue reading Queens All Doing Well
Good all round
I inspected the hives at my out apiaries today, all in good order and the new queens are laying well. I found a new queen in one of the hives at Friars Green and marked her. One of the new queens that I placed into a hive two weeks ago is laying up a storm, … Continue reading Good all round
Wet Supers & Jars of Honey
I went around 9 hives today, carrying out inspections and placing wet supers back on the hives for the bees to clean, and hopefully refill with honey. A wet super is the term used for a super full of frames that have had the honey extracted from them, and have remnants of the honey still … Continue reading Wet Supers & Jars of Honey
