Month: April 2012

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Nuc swarming

So the other day I took two frames from the pent roof hive, including about 6 queen cells. This evening it swarmed.

It landed on some delphiniums which then gave way, bees are heavy when you have lots of them in one place. Not the best first swarm for me to have to deal with, one on the floor. Due to access restrictions I collected the swarm with three shoeboxes. I had to chop down the flower stems to get to all the bees and take a bit of soil. I put out a white (ish) sheet and on a small table with the sheet leading up to the entrance.

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Rain, rain, go away…

…come again after I’ve done with moving my bees about.

So, this weather we have been having, argh. On Monday I managed to get a weather window; just warm enough to have a look at the bees. I opened the bees up and started having a look at the bees, but I had forgotten to bring my proper bee jacket. I had a hood on, but then only a t-shirt, and a black t-shirt at that (bees aren’t keen on people in dark colours or blue allegedly). So I didn’t get far into the first hive, but it was far enough for trouble to be spotted.

I’d only got 2 frames in to notice that the frames were empty where before it had been where the bees had heavy stores. The wet weather had left them drained after the big March build up of bees and the incessant rain we’d been having.

Then the real fun started. Two sealed queen cells on the front of the next frame, and that was just on the one side. At that point I had to ‘pause for thought’, I didn’t have the equipment with me to deal with queen cells (unless to knock them off). By now I’d ‘collected’ 4 stings to my upper arms, and although the stings were not bothering me too much, there was plenty of alarm pheromone around and the bees were bothered. I chose to retreat for the sake of the bees and the need for equipment.

I went to collect some nucs I’d prepared previously, then to clean some Apidea nucs, in preparation to return , but then rain started and stopped play.

So now, its three days later… Three days of drumming fingers and building other bits and pieces, researching the manipulations on the web and finding out that I’d have to start a bit earlier with the Apideas to get them built up with comb and stores before I could put a queen in them. I’ve been preparing two full hives, building nine supers, cleaning and waxing the apideas, linseeding coating all the woodwork, ‘adjusting’ a stand I’d built incorrectly the first time and assembling one hundred super frames.

Now I’m just waiting for that weather window, and I might be getting it. It is 9C (little too cold yet this morning), with odd little showers but strong sunshine coming through. Wish me luck.

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Nuc-lear Beekeeping

…aka building my first nucleus hive. So I had a piece of wood lying about and a penchant to have a go at making a nucleus hive. I started with the easy bit, making the box; just screwed butt joints for now. I’ll get round to building things using finger joints.

With a bit of light chiselling I made a simple rabbet for the frames to sit on, using a bit of trial and error for sizing, using a commercial brood frame for dimensions.

With a bit of ply making a crown board was fairly simple, making a frame and popping the board on top.

Making the roof was a similar affair, I also added spacers to rise the roof above the crown board to allow for ventilation, and wedges down the side to keep the roof centred on the hive.

The floor for this was and interesting one; rather than an entrance at the front I’ve gone for an entrance below leading up to to the wire mesh floor. I’ll tell you how I get on with that one. As for the mite tray, I figured as the whole thing will be pretty light, I can just lift the hive and place the corex board underneath.

The usual 5 frames fit in nicely leaving just a little space for manipulation.

And there we go, job done. Well just short of a stretch of roofing felt to keep out the rain and probably a lick of paint for the rest of the box too.