Buzzy Buzzy Busy

Well I have neglected my blog haven't I??
I am so sorry but it has been a little hectic to say the least!! My etsy shop is now doing well and I have lots of quotes and sales coming in, so I shouldn't complain.
I have also had a full page feature included in the North Wales Wedding guide which I am totally thrilled about, and hopefully this will bring in a few local sales.
http://www.northwalespublishing.co.uk/wedding-guide/

 

It seems funny that I can send all over the world USA, Canada, Sweden and Australia and many parts of England but get very few sales in my own local area. With a bit of publicity now and some contacts made this should be rectified soon. You wouldn't believe I work in marketing would you?

Anyway back to the bees which is not such good news!
Like many UK beekeepers who have reported losses in bees and the honey production down almost 50%,we have had a few disasters too. The awful summer we have experienced this year has had a disastrous effect on us we have lost 4 hives due to the new queens being unable to get out and mate resulting in the colonies dying out.

The other 8 hives are doing Ok and we managed to take a fair crop of honey from them, but had to leave enough to sustain them through the winter so the price at the gate has now gone up in order for me to reserve honey for the wedding favours.

We inspected the hives this weekend and have now supplemented their honey with syrup to ensure they make it through the winter but it looks like they have closed the hive down earlier this year so it is a bit hit and miss if they take the syrup down or not. Another inspection next week should let us know how they are fairing before we to stop activity until the Spring.

February Inspection

Whilst the rest of the country battles with heavy snow here in North Wales it has been a beautiful day, almost spring like!! lots of sunshine and no need for hats and gloves!!

So as it was such a great day it was time to check on the bees and see if we have any disasters in the hives?

I am pleased to report all 12 hives are strong and healthy, and have come through the winter so far so good.

A little sugar paste has been given to a few hives to help their stores but the majority had enough food to see them through.

The bees were even out foraging today on the snowdrops.

Roll on the Spring

Hive Inspection

This weekend we needed to do a full inspection of the hives to see how they were performing in relation to being queen right (hive with a laying queen) and were we were up to with the honey situation.

Our concerns were with firstly the queens!!

As my daughter was down for the weekend to celebrate her Dad's birthday and was keen to see inside a hive. She decided to suit up and join me, we decided it was best to inspect just two of the hives and leave the rest to the following day.

I explained when inspecting a hive, that you must stand behind the  hive and not in front so the foraging bees can continue working without obstruction.  Next I proudly showed her how to use the smoker, giving the entrance of the hive a few puffs of smoke to let the bees know we were coming. Then you can take of the hive roof, placing it upside down on the floor near to you but without being in your way, then take off the crown board.

You need a hive tool for the next bit to help take of the honey supers as these are nearly always glued down by the bees with propolis, at this stage the bees were flying all around her and she stayed perfectly calm and in control. I was very impressed!

I pointed out the honey combs not yet capped to her and the lovely frames that were ready to harvest, she felt the weight of the frames with and without honey on them, giving her an idea of how much honey was on a frame (2-3lb).

As we got down to the brood box (were the queen lays her eggs) we had to be very careful at this point in case the queen was on any of the frames. A few puffs of smoke help send the bees down into the box. Using the hive tool again, prize the nearest frame out carefully, this is the trickiest bit! as there isn't much room to move things.

By loosening the first one gently on one side of the frame and then the other, lift it gently from the hive this frame usually just contains stores (honey), put this to one side. Now, I explained you have a little more room to gently free the next frame by sliding it towards you. and when you have inspected the frame, place it back in the hive where you took the first frame out. Inspect each frame in turn replacing it as close the previous one, this working gap moves along with you as you inspect the hive. A few puffs of smoke now and again if you need to quieten the bees down but avoid overuse of smoke.

Last time we inspected these hives they had virgin queens in them and by now they should have been out on a mating flight and started to lay eggs. I checked to see if I could see any eggs but I am afraid all I saw was pollen and honey, bad, bad news! this was the same scenario in both hives. There was nothing more to do other than replace the supers and put the hive back together and go break the news to Mel. He was of course concerned at the news but also delighted that Cathryn had assisted in her first inspection and enjoyed the experience, relaying how calm she had been and how fascinating it all was.

Hive Inspection
Apart from checking for eggs as we had done on this occasion, when inspecting hives you must also note many other things and keep accurate records of what you have seen.

• Is the queen present and is she laying
• Is there brood at all stages
• What is the behaviour of the bees like
• Is the colony developing as well as expected
• Does the queen have enough space to lay more eggs
• Is there sufficient space for the honey to be stored
• Do they have enough stored food to last until the next inspection
• Are there any queen cells
• Are there any signs of disease

 I will let you know what happened next in my next update.................

Royal Welsh Show 2011

We had a great day at the Royal Welsh Show, in Builth Wells yesterday, it is a few years since we have been and it has changed so much. The show is just growing and growing in size and stature, apparently it is one of the best shows in Europe.

I had gone down primarily to show my rabbits, but I also had another agenda! I wanted to have a look at the Honey classes and the competition that I will have next year if I get my way!

Honey Exhibits at the Royal Welsh Show 2011

Whilst looking at the fabulous honey, mead, candle and polish exhibits we also watched a demonstration of how to make your own beeswax polish. I will be trying this my self in the near future if I can get hold of any turpentine.

More exhibits - Well done all !

There was also an exhibition hive for the general public to see the insides of a working hive, this is a great way to see what goes on inside with the eggs laid, brood at all stages and the honey and pollen coming in. I am not sure if everyone understands the complexity of the honey bee but even for beekeepers it is great to watch.

Winner of a frame of Honey, doesn't it look good- Well Done

Well done and congratulations to everyone who entered the show and especially to the winners of each class, as I know only to well how hard it is to get a red card at the Royal Welsh.
From my experience it takes months of planning and weeks of preparation just to enter a show and I am talking about livestock

Tonight we opened up a few hives to see how they are getting along, and we were nicely surprised.

Hive #2 last week, was thought to be queen less, now although we haven't seen the queen nor was there any eggs we now believe her to be there but just not mated. The reason for this is the frame of brood that was placed in the hive last week, should have had an emergency queen cell built on it if there was no queen there, and it didn't.

We have made a decision tonight to move the hives from this apiary as there seems to be a problem with the queens mating there for some unknown reason. So they will be moved the the field apiary as soon as we can do it/

Hive # 4 was also checked and I am pleased to say it was the same result as #2.

In the field apiary we checked #12 the latest acquisition, this was the last swarm collected, with a virgin queen and already she has eggs and capped brood in her hive and is doing well.

Can We Save the Hive

Tonight, we decided to remove one frame of brood at all stages from the hive number 6 and give it to hive number 1 in order to try and save it.

Hive number 1 has now got a laying queen (she was found at he weekend when we spotted eggs) and when we opened it up tonight there was a frame of capped brood, but not enough nurse bees to help see it through until these grubs hatch.

It has taken an awful long time for this quessn to go out on her mating flight and start to lay, but fingers crossed we will now save it.

We also fed it a solution of sugar syrup so they dont have to work to hard finding food or robbing their stores in order to survive.

Transfer of Bees from Nuc to Hive

Well today's Job was pretty straight forward, but it is getting a bit of a headache trying to remember which hive is which, so we have had to go around and physically number each hive.
I wanted to name them as I thought it would be lovely "Primrose Hive" has a nice sound to it, dont you think? but for simplicity sake I know its more sensible to just number them so I gave in.

It is extremely important to keep hive records especially when you have more than 2 hives, I am disciplined enough to do that and since being involved with all aspects of beekeeping I set up my own log book. There are unfortunately no records from last year, say no more..

So for record keeping sake only, I have named them as well numbering, hopefully you can then follow a little easier what I am doing in the future.

Number 1 ( Dahlia) hive is the problem Nuc which is queen less
Number 2 ( Dandelion) hive is the one which we saw the queen emerge from this week
Number 3 (Lavender) hive is the one with the honey flow and going well
Number 4 (Primrose) is my hive also with a new emerged queen this week
Number 5 (Daisy) is from an artificial swarm out of number 2 hive

All above hives are in one apiary on the mountain

Number 6  (Poppy) hive is the swarm caught in Deganwy today transferred from a Nuc box into a full hive and on 5 full frames with room to expand
Number 7 (Geranium) hive is a swarm caught in Llanbedr this hive was transferred from a full hive into a Nuc box only on 3 frames and we needed the hive for hive # 6
Number 8 (Buttercup) hive is from an artificial swarm from hive #4 and was also transferred from a Nuc into a full hive to give them more room as this was struggling for space
Number 9 (Honeysuckle) hive is from a swarm caught in Mochdre
Number 10 (Cowslip) hive is from a swarm caught in Llanrwst
Number 11 (Cosmos) hive is from a swarm caught in Llanbedr again, this week

All the above hives are in the apiary in the field

Now I can get on with some housework which has been a little neglected because of the bees!!

Inspection

Talk about learning as you go along! there is nothing quite like hands on experience, now dont get me wrong I am all for reading about the subject of bees but nothing quite makes sense until you actually experience it.

My bedtime reading at the moment is bees, bees and more bees and if it isnt a book, it is the Beecraft magazine which has lots of useful information for all beekeepers including the novice like me.

Normally we inspect the hives at the weekend but when I got home last night Mel was eager to have a look at the ones that were queenless, to see what was happening in them. So before dinner we donned our suits and went to the apiary on the mountain. I am happy to report that all hives were doing well except for one, the Nuc!



12 frame National Bee hive



5 frame Nuc Box



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Nuc, if you remember is the hive that we swapped from a full hive last weekend into a Nuc box as we thought it had so few bees and no queen, I can confirm this is definitely the case, I will update on this later.

The two other hives that were queen less on the last inspection have now got new virgin queens, in fact one emerged right in front of us.  It was fascinating to watch her pull her self out of the cell, a lovely black queen. In fact I couldnt quite beleive what I was seeing as Mel had taken out this particular queen cell to check if it was dead inside, and there she was in his hand!! they dont tell you to do that in a text book.

In the other hive we didn't actually spot the new queen but we are pretty sure she is there albeit a vigin (hence no eggs) as the remaining queen cells were all dead. I hadnt quite understood that the new queen or shall I say the first queen to emerge runs around the hive looking for queen cells in order to kill them. She wants to rule! so she kills each of them by inserting her sting into the cell before they hatch.

Another little snippet I learnt last night was the queen has multiple stings, unlike a worker bee who only has one and then dies when it has been used, she can sting lots of times and obviously lives to carry on.

The main hives from last year are now well and truly in a honey flow and bringing in the nectar. The 2 strongest hives  have almost filled a super it just needs to be capped so we we have put a new supers on each of them ready for them to fill them as well.

Fingers crossed for a bumper 2 months

Hive Number 11 another swarm

Yes that's right Hive number 11 another swarm caught tonight in Conwy,

This time it was in a swarm box so very easy to collect and to handle. The box had been placed in a dark corner of a garden by a friend of ours Cyril. He phoned us up today to say that there was a lot of activity around it, so after dinner we set out to collect it, taking with us a gift of a jar of Melys Honey as a

 thank you.

Back home we were lucky to be able to hive it straight into a brand new hive that Mel had spent all last night putting together, just in case! Lucky for the bees he had, guess what he will be doing

 tomorrow night!!

All the bees were tucked up nicely in their new home before dark.

Free Bees

Yes you guessed it, we have caught another swarm tonight, I still get absolutely fascinated by them. This one was in a hedge on a solitary branch. It was a prime swarm and quite large, you can see from the photos how big it was.

Once we were suited and booted, the branch was cut and then shaken into the box waiting below.

When the bees were safely gathered in the box they were taken to the hive.

 Off comes the lid

 The box is emptied onto the sheet

And we wait for the bees to walk up the board into their new home

Lots and lots of free bees!

A closer look

Here I am in my new suit, trying to spot the queen, unfortunately I didn't see her so we will wait for a few days and let them settle in their new hive and we will then try and find her when we check all is okay in a few days time.

Here they are making good progress of going into the hive, the queen must be inside now as they are really going in fast.

Extremely happy to have such a prime swarm, we may even get some honey out of this hive this year!! fingers crossed

Moving Hives

Gary our friend and mentor is in the process of moving the location of his apiary, so has brought his hives to us for 3 days. You nay ask why?

The reason is ;- you can move a hive 3 foot or 3 miles

So if you need to move the hives 1 mile away like he does, you first have to move them 3 miles away from their original home, let them settle and find there new bearings, and then you can move them to their new site.

This is all well and good but we ended up with another 10 hives for 3 days, not normally an issue!

but there is one hive that has simply gone berserk!! as soon as you go within 30 yards of them they are buzzing around your head warning you off. We have both been stung by them over the last couple of days so we cant wait for this hive to leave.

If that was my hive, I would just throw the towel in now, they are far to vicious and it just wouldn't be the pleasure to keep bees that it is.

Gary is now going to re queen this hive with a gentler strain, thank goodness.

Melys Honey - The begining

Welcome to my new blog, this is all about my honey bees and the honey products that I will be selling under the brand name "Melys Honey". Ranging from Edible Wedding Favours that are suitable for men, women and children, they are unique, unusual and can be completely personalised. New ranges that will launch in the Autumn will be gifts for Christmas, so come back and grab yourself some.

I aim to update the blog regularly throughout the season for anyone interested in beekeeping (from a novices point of view) and I hopefully will share the happenings of the hive and any new things that I learn along the way.

My camera will be out and about so I can share some images too. If you have any questions please leave a comment and I will try and answer the best I can.