and then there were six....

I've been very happy with 5 hives for the last few weeks.  (That's my original three, plus a mini one temporarily homing an old queen to prevent her swarming, and Paul's swarm)  They've been developing nicely, looking healthy and not showing any signs of swarming, So I wasn't particularly looking for another.

So I was completely taken aback to walk down the garden and find this in the fruit cage...

Its a little swarm!

Good job I know what to do and have a box to do it with...

Unfortunately it was late in the afternoon and the weather forecast was threatening rain so these girls needed to get a shimmy on and get into the box.  They were going a bit slow, in fact they were distinctly reluctant to leave the ground...  good job 'im indoors was nearby and could lift the decking to shake them into the box...

except that with all of these ones UNDER the decking its not looking like such a small swarm anymore...

However I think the queen must have been in the batch that got shaken from the piece of decking into the box as they suddenly started to move towards the box...

in fact they positively RAN into the box...

Five minutes later ....not a bee in sight...

I think you've seen the next bit a few times now.  Its beginning to get like a Tommy Cooper magic trick; " Box, Bees, 

Bees in box.  Just like that"

So lets recap on the hive situation here...

The original three, plus Paul's swarm on the far left...

The old queen hiding behind the playhouse...

and now these girls, to the side of the shed...

So that's six.  Six times the work, six times the fun.....I wonder if it might also be six times the honey?

Paul's swarm.....

It's not at all embarrassing to get home from a afternoon's beekeeping and find 'im indoors outside surveying his ability to capture a swarm...

I'd missed all the excitement but thanks to his handy camera phone P hadn't!

Firstly the swarm thought it might be a good idea to settle in the rosebush that separates us from next door...

 

But then some of them settled on the edge of the fruit cage....

They buzzed around between both sites for a while but then the queen must have settled with the lot on the  fruit cage and so everyone in the rosebush piled across the garden to join them....

 

 

Thankfully 'im indoors has had a fair amount of practice (*snigger*) at catching swarms so he knew exactly what to do!

Pop a box nearby, on a white sheet so that the inside of the box looks inviting brush a few bees inand hope the word spreads that they've found a great new place to live...be patient....and gradually they will all walk into the box...

 

See.....

Suddenly hanging around on a fruitcage support doesn't seem like such a great idea....

Anyway it was beginning to get a bit chilly so we decided that it would be a good idea to get the bees into a hive as soon as we could.  With swarms there is a bit of a "finders keepers" rule so he who gets to find the swarm gets to hive the swarm. So a nice clean box from my spring cleaning last month

open the box ....

 




Peak in to see just how many there really are...

shake into the box...(yup that's a lot of bees!)

add frames of foundation wax gently and then put the crown board and roof on...

 

Of course, after last year, I'll just be relieved to see them still there tomorrow!!

Spring clean 2015

It's time for a bit of a clean up!

The bees have been in their current boxes all through last summer and have been cooped up for most of the winter.  So its time to swap them into nice clean boxes and clear out all the nasties that might have taken up residence in there with them...

No sooner had I got the roof off than this super conscientious worker decided it was time to clear out the clingfilm that had been wrapped around the fondant back in January.  So now I know exactly how much clingfilm one worker can carry out of a hive!

 

 

 

How nice of her to leave it on 'im indoors finger!

As well as the remains of bits of clingfilm there were a few of these chaps to get rid of...

I loath wax moth  grubs.  I know in the scheme of things they serve a useful purpose eating up the pupal sacs and debris in the bottom of a hive, but they have a nasty habit of destroying too much brood comb and damaging viable honey bee grubs in the process, plus they are super ugly and seem to exude grease from all the wax they eat.  Frankly they deserve to be squished.

I found some good stuff too, like this frame...

All along the  left side (its the top in real life but I held it sideways for the photo) are cells filled with fresh nectar the bees have been bringing in from all the spring flowers.  

The middle, which looks empty at first glance is actually full of eggs - if you look very carefully at the bottom edge you really can see them...look again...like lots of teeny tiny rice grains...

And the cells on the right, see  how they are bigger?  that's where the queen is laying drones, the first ones she laid, in the middle have been capped-they look a bit like bubble wrap.

She is such a good queen! Here she is with a lovely green spot on her shoulders...

and here is her sister in the hive next door...

They are the daughters of this queen who gave me the run around last summer.

So as I've decided that my apiary is only big enough for three hives, and my patience is only virtuous enough for one queen who might cause me that much grief, one of them has to be culled.

But which one?

Thankfully I've got a half spring cleaned apiary...

and a stack of beekeeping kit that needs cleaning up ...

whilst I ponder my way through that dilemma!

Let the season commence....

I've got a new bee suit and I'm determined to use it!!

The temperature hit 14'c a little after noon so the bees were out flying and it seemed the perfect opportunity to get into each hive and check that the queens had made it through the winter and are starting to get laying.

For me, there is also the additional job of clearing out all the remaining brace comb from my school girl error at the end of last year.

So.....no time like the present -  get on and scrape, chip and scoop all that excess brace comb off the top of the brood frames...

nearly gone....

It didn't take too long till I had a trough full of honey comb...

probably because I had some help from 'im indoors....

We had a visit from a Queen bumble,not my best picture ...but you kind of get the scale of her in comparison to the worker honey bees behind...

I remember reading somewhere that bumblebees are never more than 45 minutes away from starvation, being limited by the size of their stomach.  So I figure we can share some of this honey with her. (Isn't she magnificent?)

I've left the trough of honeycomb in the sunshine in the hope that every bee in the area comes and helps itself.  Then I'll be able to make something interesting from the comb.

oh - nearly forgot - yes it looks like all four of my queens have made it through the winter.  Actually only saw two of them but there are eggs and capped brood in all four hives, so I reckon the other two ran away and hid whilst I spring cleaned!