Saturday 24 May 2014

One bee keepers loss.....

Is there ever a good time for a swarm of bees to arrive?

That's probably a rhetorical question....but this week would rank of one of the most badly timed weeks for honey bee swarming.  Part way through the verifying of some 16,000 postal votes, after some particularly late nights, early starts and highly frustrating wrestling with remote access to spreadsheets that should have worked but didn't...I was hardly in a great frame of mind to receive a text asking if I could offer a large swarm a new home....

However; one bee keepers loss is another's gain,   never look a gift bee in the mandible and all those other maxims.  I said yes.

So it was that I came to be bee suited and booted on a Monday evening brushing bees out of a box into a spare hive...if in doubt turn the box upside down and shake'em in!



Stand back and admire them settling......


A few seemed to be a bit confused... or a bit disorientated from being rudely shaken and finished up underneath the hive.  It wouldn't be a worry ...unless the queen had ended up under there by mistake in which case come morning there would have been a big lump of bees hanging underneath the hive as everyone who had been shaken inside would have gradually realised she was outside and walked outside to huddle next to her and keep her warm...



Thank fully that didnt seem to be be the case and as I walked away all the stragglers and disorientated ones seemed to be walking steadily in the direction of the front door....


I've left them alone all week, but today was the day to investigate just how happy they were with their new home...

Early signs were encouraging....

A near full brood box of bees....


They were VERY docile and were busy "stringing" - this is when they link together to form chains hanging down from the frames and use their mandibles to manipulate the wax being exuded from their wax producing glands... gradually building up the hexagons of beeswax to make a nest for the queen to start laying in...


Look ....you can see right down to the shiny, new and clean bottom of the hive...


But the most important question to answer today is is there a queen? 

Soon enough I found evidence of her being there...


There were three whole frames of beautiful new clean wax cells...all with a tiny egg laid right at the bottom....
Wanna closer look?

All in all there were three frames of freshly laid eggs....that's c. 6,000 eggs laid in just over 4 days....this could be the start of a vigorously prolific colony....so where is she?

Suddenly in the mass of stringing bees there was a different shaped abdomen....

 

And then all the workers cleared and I got the opportunity for a great shot of her....



and a sudden burst of sunshine meant I over exposed the shot.  But anyway here she is in all her glory.

Now I need to decide if I'm going to re start my naming of queens......Anyone know any queens beginning with G?

Sunday 18 May 2014

Bumble ...bumble....bumble......

I should say right at the start of this post that bumble bees are not at all aggressive, very rarely sting and are very easy to live alongside.  That said, if they decide to make a nest right next to where you need to be it can be very annoying to have to duck and dive past them as you go about your business and they try to go about theirs.

So it isn't unusual for honey bee keepers to get the odd call from worried members of the public wanting a nest moved...when that call comes from 'im doors boss ..there really is only one possible reaction.  It was move them or call in the pest controllers, who would simply kill off the nest and charge silly money for doing so.

I looked up the Bumble bee conservation trust website for some advice on moving bumble nests... only to find the advice is pretty much "don't".

Undeterred I shared out some spare suits to willing and curious helpers, and found myself suited and booted on Sunday evening and investigating a buzzing bird box at dusk....


After blocking the main entrance with some foam and the back with some cardboard and gaffer tape, and with a bit of screwdriver wiggling, and the brief application of a crowbar 'im indoors prized the bird box slowly from the wall....


I was then trusted to hold it carefully and safely (still buzzing) whilst the new site in the apple tree on the other side of the garden was prepared....

 

Having completed my holding duties to the required standard I was allowed the honour of placing the box in its super new location...


Facing back into the bushes they should be safely hidden away and no longer flying straight into the path of anyone walking down the garden....


Hopefully the few that were still flying when we moved the nest will soon find it again...

Monday 5 May 2014

You can slither .....but you can't hide....

Is there any reason for slugs and snails?


I mean, apart from to annoy gardeners?

They get into the most irritating places, whether its up the fence panels or near the top of the apple tree...

 

or right down low next to the base of the daffodil leaves...


I wish I could see some beauty in them.... they come in so many colours...

Stripy tigers....


Humbugs....


Or marbled yellow and white ones...



There are teeny weeny tiny ones...


And some monsters, that frankly, you don't need many chips with...


No matter what shape, size or colour they all seem to be peskily good at camouflage and hiding...



But no matter how fast they slither....


Or how many daffodil leaves they hurdle...


or how often they try to distract me by sending a friend off in another direction...


They all eventually meet the same fate...

The fabric conditioner bottle of DOOM!


The lid is perfectly shaped for scoop and dump...


And there is no escape from the bottle of DOOM

 




Even when you send the cute little one out first, I can not be suckered into letting anyone go...


Once the bottle of DOOM is full the lid goes on and off it goes to the bin


So you see...in my garden...you can slither but you can't hide!!

Saturday 3 May 2014

Forget-your breakfast?

I always think of the garden as being very blue in May....


There's a sudden riot of bluebells and forget me nots.  Both of which are great source of nectar for bees.

Although to be frank, considering the number of bluebells, the volume of forget-me-nots and the number of bees I have only a few metres away I'm rather surprised by just how few I've seen on the flowers.   :(

When I commented about it down at the apiary I was told by wiser sages that I'd simply been looking at the wrong time of day, I needed to get out earlier in the morning..forget-me-nots release their nectar early in the day...Its amazing what you do see at the right time of day...




So there was nothing else for it....an early start was required...it seems I wasn't the only one who fancied forget-me-not nectar for breakfast...




Unfortunately I still don't know what it tastes like.....
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