Sunday 30 March 2014

A week of waiting patiently for silly bees

I left the bees like this last night...


































I was hoping that as the light faded and the warmth of the day disappeared that they would decide a night on the floor in front of two perfectly lovely hives wasn't a good idea and they would gradually shift themselves into one of the other hives....

The morning after showed me that they'd had completely different ideas about the best place to spend the night....


































OBVIOUSLY the lattice fence is THE place for all the best bees to hang out....

And there they stayed...


































In fact they stayed there all week!!!!!

I snuck down the garden most mornings, wondering how they were managing to survive as the overnight temperatures were getting incredibly close to freezing...

And pretty much every morning they were sat on the fence...

 

I thought the frost that bowed the daffodils and coated the kit I'd rather lazily left outside might have finished them off ....

 




But no...they were still there hanging on the fence....



They were even defiantly starting to make some wax.....as though living on a lattice fence might actually be a sensible and long term option!

Silly bees!!

New advice from the apiary was sought.  Clearly there had been a queen in the hive...not a viable laying one you understand but certainly one giving out enough pheromones to convince a reasonable number of VERY SILLY bees that she was worth protecting in the middle of that huddle somewhere.

There was nothing else for it ..if they were still there on Sunday they were going to need to be swept into a box, gone through very carefully to hunt out that queen.  Then, and ONLY then I would need to kill her and then try to unite the remaining workers with one of the other hives.

They must have heard me thinking through how I was going to do this...

Part way through Saturday morning ..they upped and flew away!

Leaving behind only there smallest signs that they were ever there...

 

I wonder where they are now?....

Sunday 23 March 2014

So three became two..

So my joy at getting three hives of bees through the winter proved to be VERY short lived as the reality of the consequences of a drone laying queen or a laying worker sank in.

In short, with no new worker bees being laid and the over wintering bees starting to die as spring trully gets up and running, there would soon be noone bringing in nectar and the colony would slowly starve to death.

Definitely not a nice way to go.
Action was called for - but what to do?
The consensus of advice down at the apiary was "if there really isn't a queen...throw them on the floor"

So a thorough inspection was needed..if there's a queen in there she needs to be found...


But try as I might I could not find a queen
There was plenty of drone brood developing....

This seemed to me to be the surest sign that in the absence of a fertilised queen one (or maybe several) worker bees' ovaries had developed so that they could lay eggs....

 




But as she hadn't mated, no sperm available means she would be incapable of laying workers...hence all the drones.

So ..there's nothing else to be done....its time to throw them all on the floor...




The theory is that out in the open the pheromones from the laying worker will not be strong enough to convince all the other workers that there is a queen present.  So they will do their best to find their way into another hive.  If they turn up on the landing board bearing gifts of honey or pollen the chances are that they will be let into the hive...

 

Certainly seems like some introductions are being made....so its just a case of being patient and letting them sort themselves out...

Better take the old hive floor away...


Some of them seem determined to return home even though home isn't there any more!!

Saturday 22 March 2014

Start 'em young I say....

It all started with a challenge to get a little sewing machine working properly...


It may not look like much but this fiendish little machine was getting in the way of a fledgling needlewoman enjoying her chosen craft.
After all what is the point of have a super posh sewing box and not being able to get on with some sewing....


After much twiddling of nobs and re-threading of needles it still wasn't really playing the game, so there was nothing else for it the big machine had to be brought into play....


Somebody took to it like a duck to water!
Could we make a bigger patchwork piece?
Could we?  What kind of a question is that for me?

Both scrap baskets were repeatedly rummaged, would we find enough pieces for a doll sized quilt?

 

Squares were cut an pinned together....


Mum was commandeered into pressing duties....


Pretty soon squares became rows...


And rows joined together to become a small quilt top...


A spare piece of wadding and backing, a quick zoom around the edge, turn it back the right way round, sew up the gap and TA- DAH!


A new quilter is born...

Friday 14 March 2014

Sweet endings and flowers...

Its been a tough week at work.
No idea why this one has felt so much tougher than any other recently, but I really felt like I'd earned my flexi day off come the end of Thursday...

In fact I felt like I'd earned a little "treat me" moment....
So I indulged.....


On the way home 2 packs of cheery tulips had to be indulged in.  Here they are sitting by the fireplace looking all velvety and spring like....


And as if that wasn't enough....because there were two packs there were enough for two vases.  So here's the second vase on top of the CD cupboard...


Really must get around to putting those CDs away....


My other good fortune this week was a sweet find....

Our enterprising intern went to Kenya for a family wedding.  So I thought I'd make a cheeky request;  
" If you happen to see some honey in a local market....can you bring me some..."
And did he ever!

2 Kg of Real Tuspa Honey


And carefully wrapped in a copy of daily nation....

 




A jar of wild bush honey...
I know what I'm going to have on my toast in the morning!

I do work with some lovely lovely people....maybe that's why I keep going back every day...

Sunday 9 March 2014

First inspection.

NEVER has one woman sooooo looked forward to wearing such a drab piece of clothing!!



The weather rather spectacularly made it to 15'c today, and with hardly any wind it was gorgeous bee keeping weather.  So absolutely no excuses. Today's mission was to open the hives and check that there was a good supply of food, just in case it turns suddenly cold and also to feed a growing colony, because what I was really looking for was a healthy laying queen bee and the first signs of young brood bees.

The early signs of healthiness were good.  The fronts of the hive were in dappled sunshine and pretty soon began to resemble the M25 with bees bringing in pollen...


 

Right then.... no more dithering around trying to take pictures...Time to get into hive number one.

Oh Hello!
What on earth are you all doing up there on the inside of the crown board?


Now beginner bee keepers are always taught to check the inside of the roof and the crown board very carefully "just in case" the queen is there.  But in two years I've never even been vaguely suspicious that the queen was anywhere other than safely in the hive....
Until now....
.....it took a few seconds to spot her...


Come on - look carefully - long body and orange legs.....There she is!


Now I'm going to have to check my notes. I think there should be a red marked queen in this hive... but there clearly isn't so really need to look carefully for some signs of worker brood to indicate she is properly mated and healthy...

That'll do ... Everything here looks good and healthy....


Time to move onto hive number two....

Happy bee keeper in action
These girls have been hungry...they've nearly finished the kilo of fondant I put in there last month...


They've been building wax and filling empty cells with nectar... in fact as I was turning the frames over I could hear the nectar dripping out of the frames....

 

It started off looking oh-sooooo good.....but then as I reached the last two frames, still diligently searching for the queen, I spotted a worrying sight...

 

Rather than lovely biscuit looking worker brood, a frame of bubble wrap looking drone cells.

If there's a queen in there (I couldn't find her) she appears to have not been well mated.So rather than laying fertilised worker bees she is laying un-fertilised drone bees.  This is not a good thing as with no workers on the way to hatching  the colonies days may be numbered.

Finally hive number 3.

These girls have pretty much ignored the fondant....they seem to have treated it more as a play ground...


and have even tried building brace comb around it...


But inside..the hive there is definitely some worker brood, its a bit patchy but it definitely there...


And so is last year's queen..with her nice red blob on her shoulders....


So - two of three hives looking healthy.  A much better start to this year than last.

I'm off to read up on what I can do about that queen less hive.... I sense I'm going to be very busy if this good weather continues...

Please please please continue
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