Bee check 25th may

Beecheck 25^th may

Etienne’s swarm was happy enough in their corner, moderate flying, not many flowers around, the syrup had gone, removed the feeder,  placed a clear plastic top. Eggs seen on 4 frames, so the Q has settled in. NQS, is she marked?

The new green queen, the green marker - light green - is rather weak it had worn off last week leaving a sort of brown mess. Discontinue and use darker green pen.

Larvae and closed brood on 4 frames, flying at low levels. Removed folding frame where eggs had been laid, to small double hive, but forgot to check fully closed and the flyers have gone I fear. NQS

Red aflegger, rather a confused picture, some eggs and larvae, not in any good pattern, but QC’s with larvae still open, left alone, bees on 6 frames. NQS

Red swarm, not much brood, 2_3 frames, a bit of a lull in food I think, some larvae and closed brood.NQS

Brussels swarm, definitely no Queen, no brood or eggs, no sign of QC’s,  no further action. NQS

Red queen  by tractor house; honey being eaten?  Brood on 5 frames full of bees, not much flying, white pollen coming in? added bee filter on top of a new fresh wax lift on mon 26^th for removal to spin on 28^th. NQS.

Yellow queen, still the best laying pattern, 5 frames brood, lots of bees. added bee filter on top of a new fresh wax lift on mon 26^th for removal to spin on 28^th.

Probably the most honey.

An easy swarm 18th May

They don't come much easier;
Etienne fellow member of the Denderbiekes, has 11 hives full of bees, one of his swarmed into a middle sized apple tree 30m from the hive, via Ghislain a mail went out, asking if anybody wanted to go and collect it at about 2030 saturday evening.

Luckily i saw it sunday morning around 0830, rang and nobody else had claimed it, so off i set to a rather posh part of the world, Petit Enghien.

Etienne and his wife farm 14 hectares as hobby farmers, and keep bees, an emaculate place where the grass looks painted, on the edge of the posh area, where his house would fit into a garage :-).

Etienne had already got the swarm into a straw skep, the stragglers were back on the tree, so i knocked them into my pampers box, wrapped up the skep in a large hesian sack, and headed off. Not wothout finding out that he had been a steel worker all his life (wind turbines!)

They now live in the corner of the field, by the willow tree called the Admiral, i fed them 10kg's of syrup which had all gone by the following weekend.

Quite a large swarm, they took a day to all go into the hive, and they probably need a new lift soon.

Sunday 4th May

News this week that American foul brood has been diagnosed in Geraardsbergen, rather close for comfort. This puts a 5km no fly/move/share zone around the outbreak.

This probably means no overlarf project this year.

Inspection before going to Denmark for two weeks to build a wind turbine.

Yellow Q seen, full of bees, 7 frames of brood, lots of honey (15kg) no Q cells.

Red Q daughter of YQ, no Q cells, lots of bees 7 frames of Brood, honey 12 kg.
Folding frame now with brood, removed and put in other side of green hive, RQ came too so put her back in the front door of her hive.

Left side folding green no inspection.

Brussels Swarm Q not seen, no Q cells, 4 frames brood, bees filling 8 frames.

Swarm not in honey lift, RQ seen, brood in 4 frames.

No inspection of aflegger and original hive, chance of Q cells for swarm should be low.

Its the end of sunny fine weather, it rained the whole of the following week.

A good bee sunday

Sunday 27 April,

Fine weather for the last three weeks, a very early warm spring all fruit blossom now over except late apple, may flowers still out plus a little rape.

First up the hive at Oma's, Ilya comes too but they are rather aggressive and he prefers to leave.
Rather weak no queen found but they have two queen cells and the whole colony only occupies 6 frames with nothing in the honey lift.
Lets hope the new queen hatches and does better.

Back in Tollembeek after lunch.
The Old yellow Queen was seen and doing fine, bottom full of bees, 6 frames of brood,1 frame of drones, about 8 kgs honey, half full of bees. No Q cells, definitely need to breed Q's from her.

Yellow's daughter. Finally found her and marked her red, brood full of bees, one frame of drones, no eggs yet in the folding frame, no Q cells. Honey also full of bees, 12 kg of honey.

Green left side with a folding brood from yellows daughter, no Q cells. Later took a Q cell from the bursting hive.

Brussels 2013 swarm red Q still there seen, only 8 frames of bees no bees in honey lift, removed lift and gave to swarm.

Bursting swarm, red Q seen, 11 frames of bees all pulled, all full of sugar syrup, 2 frames where eggs present.

Aflegger from bursting all Q cells empty, new Q seen marked green 1st of the year! 6 frames of bees, she may still be virgin.

Bursting: brood full of bees, 4 Q cells found, one removed to put in green folding hive left, honey lift half full of bees. 10 kg of honey but only ¼ capped...

2014 a new experiment in bee blogging

What does it take for me to record notes on the life and times of my bees? i call them mine but of course they belong to themselves, i just host them and try to create the necessary conditions for their happiness and survival.

Last night i went to the annual start meeting of the Denderbiekes overlarvae project, always entertaining, sometimes barely understandable, bees in flemish dialect!

I took part last year and went from hero to zero in a week, 20 cells were pulled from 20 larvae, but i moved them to early to their fertilisation hives and only 1 out of 20 actually hatched a queen.

This year i'll use the same method, restrain the queen for a week before the larvae are introduced and she is removed, but i'll wait til hatch day -1 at least before i put them into their little fertilisation boxes.

I ordered 10 Carnicas from Guido, and i'll get 10 buckfast from Ghislain.


First swarm
Easter monday around 1600 a big swarm left the big drain end hive. Note on saturday i had taken an aflegger from this hive that included 6 closed queen cells, accidentally took the queen too, but put her back. Maybe i missed one, maybe they had already decided to swarm.
Any way a cloud of bees filled the air in front of the hive and slowly moved to the Generalisimo willow tree, happily i got to Timo who was sitting happily in the flight path just in time.

The boys in the house i got kitted up, and went about the work of boxing the swarm that had formed it bunch in the lower branches of the willow, Hilde having stayed on guard duty in case they moved!

Having refused to move up into the upside down box, i had to brush them in and close the box, wait for them to reform and repeat the exercise. Water spray improved the whole process and an hour later i'd got most of them, a god 1.5kgs.

Leaving the box where the hive would come, i went in for tea and to make up a lift of new wax.

The thunderstorm was impressive, it rained about 10mm in 15 mm,and of course the pampers box didn't like this much and the lids fell in and the sides sagged. Happily the swarm went up underneath the fallen down lids.

With Hilde's help, great to see her back in bee kit after 2 years of being pregnant and generally in mother mode, we brushed the bees into the new hive and feed them with 14kgs of liquid sugar.

From one bursting hive i now have three, two hopefully getting on with their new queens.

Honey Bee genome mapped!
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061028/fob1.asp

This link came from the complexity digest, its about the mapping of the honey bees genome.
More genes for smelling and fewer for disease?? interesteing how such social beings have evolved.

Note a second hive has joined the first, and the first years honey was about 20kg in total.

My dad, in the UK, is a beekeeper, so i've been around bees and bees stories for as long as i can remember. The desire to become a beekeeper was growing inside me and one day passing a sign for 'Honing' (dutch for honey) i pulled off the road and paid the first of many visits to Henri Daems, who took very little persuading to buy a new German norm square polystyrene hive for me and to fill it with a new colony of bees with a young fertile, marked and clipped queen. This was in late june and he said the best time for establishing new colonies was september and that he would ring me when it was ready. Part of the deal was that i would swap the colony for a beeswax skin cream recipe of my dads.

When the phone rang, three months later, with the simple message that my beehive and bees were ready, a wave of excitement and panic built around me: the complication was that i had no where to put them - i had agreed with my wife that they could not inhabit a corner of our garden, given the constant games of football, cricket and golf played by our 5 kids and friends. The grand father of a girl friend of our youngest son is a local beekeper but i hadn't got round to finding him and making the neccessary arrnagements.

On the appointed day i set off with Edward (eldest son) to pick them up and hopefully drop them off at a medieaval hall, under a line of old lime trees, where a friend and i are due to give our training on leadership inside out. They lady of the hall rang through their ok just in time and i remembered as we were on the motorway to hassle my dad for the hand cream recipe, which surprised and amused him as i had kept the whole project to myself.

At about 2030 we picked them up, drove to the hall, and just about in daylight, we put them quietly under the trees, facing south away from the trees towards a field of cows. Amazing.

The following days were a bit unreal as i talked to my dad and the bee shop lady (who just happened to be 5 minutes up the road near my current work in Herentals) about which kit i needed and how i should feed them. It took nearly an hour and a half to get out of the ladies basement shop, bee people can just talk and talk....

I made a wooden base and painted it and the second lift in the special green paint which henri had carefully supplied, and with my new hood and gloves set about giving them the first of 12 kg of special syrop bought from the bee shop lady, in the upside down plastic bucket with holes punched in its lid, from henri. note:- the smoker is a pain with the hay granules being very difficult to keep alight; dad uses rolled up card board, much better and easier he says.

Next challenge is to treat for verroa, here henri has lent me a burner to evaporate a special natural acid (found in rhubarb) in the top of the hive.
I'll try it at the week end, in the evening of the training which starts on friday.
j