May swarm

An exciting day at the apiary: a swarm, our first of the season. It was spotted by the gardeners earlier in the afternoon. The bees had congregated on a young cherry tree, just like one of last year's swarms. Jenny had been round to catch them. They were waiting in the skep she'd brushed them into, laid to rest upside down on the ground and wrapped in a white sheet.

Luckily we had new homes waiting for them: not one but two beautiful top bar hives, made by Steve. They were not quite ready: both were missing the metal grille that usually lines the bottoms, to provide good ventilation. We also meant to coat the insides with shellac. But no matter, we found the grilles in the shed, cut and stapled one of them to the base of the smaller of the two hives, to house our new bees, and painted a coat of shellac inside the big one, to which we might move them later.

Then we moved the bees! Here are some photos.

The last few bees scarpering up the 'runway' we laid for them, to join the queen and the rest of the colony inside the new hive:

Swarm, and swarm again!

Today was an eventful day: just as we returned to the main site from inspecting the colony in the bait hive, a mass of bees was buzzing about in the air above us - swarm!

Where had they come from? Unfortunately it looked as though they were coming from the direction of the national hive in which we housed one of our swarms. We opened the national and it was indeed almost empty with just a few bees remaining, and hardly any stores. It was also a sunnier spot than the others. Maybe it was too hot for them.

The swarm started to settle onto the outside of the newest top bar hive (the current holders of the most beautiful straight comb award):

Jenny swept the bees into a cardboard box with a brush, and carefully turned it over onto a sheet on the ground below the top bar hive.

We carried the deserted national hive (and the table it sat on) over to the other side near the fence where it would get some shade, facing the top bar hive they'd settled on. Then we added a super on top and placed a half-frame of honey from Jenny's hive inside it to entice the bees back in. 

They were rather reluctant to march back in of their own accord so we ended up putting the cardboard box directly in the hive, on top of the crown board, with a brood box around them then the roof on top. Here's hoping they like the new location better and decide to stay!

Before the swarm happened, we found and marked the queen in the bait hive (green because she's probably one of last year's queens).

After the drama of recapturing the swarm, we inspected the top bar hives - both the new one next to the lavender box (to admire the beautiful straight comb) and the old one at the back near the fence.

We'd struggled to inspect the latter up till now as there was an area of cross-comb at the far end which we could not look at without tearing through the comb. The other end was rather quiet and empty so we decided to have another go and see what was going on. This time we were able to separate the frames out by careful surgery with a bread knife, and they were doing fine - they were just hidden in the last few frames, so we reduced the size of the hive a bit. We found the queen - she was easy to spot for once: a bright ginger lady!

Birds and Bees event

This coming Sunday we're hosting our 'Birds and Bees' event. All welcome. Look out for Anna's lovely poster:

Testing times

Very soon after the excitement of the swarms we had cause to be rather worried: we noticed some open cells in a couple of the hives with a lump of white sticky stuff at the bottom: it looked as though the bee larva had melted. Observe the cell in the bottom middle of the photo (and another to the centre right):

This 'melted' appearance is one of the signs of a disease called foul brood, of which there are two strains: European and American. Jenny ordered some test kits to test the larva for the diseases. We tested both hives.

...and the result: negative. Phew! We were all so relieved.

Swarm season - from one hive to five!

A couple of months back we had one colony, which we split into two. Then we found one swarm, then a second, then a third! So today we had a record five hives to inspect. So much has happened and this blog is very behind! Here's a potted history of the swarms.

Swarm one was found on 24 May in the bait hive which was left on the roof of the toilet:

The frames in the bait hive were of the conventional type (4-sided frames with foundation wax), suited to a 'national' hive rather than the top bar type used in 'natural' beekeeping. So we opted to build a 'national' hive to give them a more permanent home. Although our chosen route is the natural one, we hope we can use the national hive to show people the differences between a top bar hive and a national one.

The new cedar wood national hive arrived as a flat pack. Tue, Ann, Jon and I set to work, each of us making the roof, the boxes and the frames, with Steve as our supervisor:

 

Result. We placed the new hive as close as possible to the location of the bait box before introducing them to their new home on 11 June.

Swarm two was found on Sunday 21 June. Here's Alistair's photo:

The swarm was lifted into the other half of the first top bar hive we made - the entrance is the hole on the right in the photo below. The first colony is in the left half of the hive but their entrance is on the other side - best to separate the entrances rather than have them side by side, so the bees' flight paths to the entrances arrive from opposite sides. It's not quite Heathrow, but you see what I mean!

Swarm three was found hanging on a small tree in the garden on Tuesday 23rd June. It was coaxed down into the bait box, just below the tree in this picture from today's inspection:

So this is how we went from one hive to five. We will be keeping a close eye on them to see how they all get on. Fingers crossed!

Smartening up the apiary

Today we made a start on smartening the apiary up for our ‘Birds and Bees’ event on Sunday 12^th July.

Then we checked all our hives. What a change having gone from one hive to three (not to mention Jenny’s two)! We call them the ‘queenright’ (our second top bar hive to which we moved the queen and a few frames from our first top bar hive), ‘queenless’ (our first top bar hive - the removal of the queen would force the bees to rear a new one) and ‘national’ (the traditional square hive we built as a new home for the swarm we caught in the bait box).

News from the queenless hive: it needs a new name as it's no longer queenless – someone has been laying. But we found several queen cells (the nose-like protuberances in the photo below) so more queens are on the way! 

We considered splitting the hive. This would also be an opportunity to better manage the hive by moving the cross comb, so we broke the bars off (look at all that honey!). The cross comb isn't straight - it curves and overlaps across more than one bar so it isn't possible to move each one on its own and inspect it visually to see what's happening in the hive and detect any problems.

But we had a change of heart: what if there is a problem with the queen? Maybe they need a new one, hence the extra queen cells? So we left them in the end, rather than split the hive. Jenny wondered whether we might have what are called ‘caste swarms’, where a queen leaves with part of the colony but not all. So we wait and see.

Not such great March weather

We had a look through the side window to see whether the bees had started to build any of that nice straight comb onto the top bar we'd inserted two weeks previously. They hadn't touched it, or the honey on the floor, and were sluggishly huddled together. The weather had got colder and wetter since that first week in March when they were bringing all that pollen in. That would explain why their activity was much diminished, in spite of abundant blossom to be had. How things can change depending on the weather!