That Reminds Me

Alice (daughter of Wood) has finally decided to start laying.It looks like she started leaving almost the day after I left her alone, since there was capped brood, larvae and eggs in today. However, since they’d been left alone for so long, they’d ended up with honey and pollen right in the middle of the brood space, so I’ve rearranged the frames to give her more laying space in the centre. Hopefully this will mean that they won’t make use of the numerous play cells that had popped up everywhere! I also added super, so that any more stores they bring in won’t go in this new brood space.

No sign of eggs in Heather yet, but she’s only just into the mating period, so I’m happy to wait. Poly is also happily drawing out frames in the super, and the brood appears half drawn (4/5 frames drawn - didn’t go in and check for brood).

Todo

Go and check for eggs in Heather next week (Monday, with Anne) - DONE

Mark the queens in Heather Green (for 2009)

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After dropping half a gallon of sugar syrup on my feet from the cracked feeder on Saturday, I thought I’d better top it up again.I added another gallon of 1:1 syrup to the feeder, and had a quick look at the frames - it looks like the bees are drawing out everywhere, including a bit in the super, which is a good sign. I’ll be checking Wood for a laying queen on Friday, and Heather for eggs on Tuesday or Wednesday next week, so I can take off the feeder then.

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Today was the final beginner’s beekeeping class, and time to see how the ‘swarm’ Poly was getting along.As expected, there was a good number of bees working the hive - made up of all the flying bees from the original hive on the new site. However, they hadn’t got much drawing done, so I decided to give them a feed to encourage drawing the new frames.

1 gallon of 1:1 syrup was added, although closer to 0.5 gallons reached the bees, after I had to change feeders over having discovered a leak in one! This should give them some extra energy to draw out the new foundation, and allow them to create space for brood laying and honey storage more quickly.

Todo

On Wednesday, return and refill or take off the feeder. DONE

On Friday 20th May check Wood for a laying queen and find and destroy her if she’s still not laying, adding in eggs for a new queen. DONE

Tues/Wed 2nd/3rd June check Heather to see if she’s laying. DONE

Varroa count in Heather and Wood.

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I’ve given some thought to the new queens on their way, and decided that its time for them to have new names.I’ve decided on Alice for the new queen in Wood, and Heather for the queen in the new hive. Of course, I should really say the next queen in, since there’s a chance these ones won’t survive to mate properly, but fingers crossed!

I decided its better to name on queen, than hive box, since things could become confusing if a box is named, but its occupants change with swarm control and bee movements.

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Today I artificially swarmed Poly to create a new hive - something I had to do or they were going to do it for me!I used the [Pagden](http://www.woodwose.net/beeblog/archive/2009/05/16/Chopping_and_Changing “” ) method as described before to do this - move the old hive to a new site, place an empty hive on the original site, and move the queen back, allowing the flying bees to follow in their own time.

I had moved the queen swarm cell out to a nuc box on the new site on Saturday, and this was now capped, so the new hive should have a queen by next Wednesday, and hopefully mated by the 1st of June.

It also looks like the old queen from Wood is gone from her nuc. Given that Wood was superseding her, and that there was no sign of egg laying in the nuc, it seems likely that she’s either been bumped off or kicked out.

Todo

I’ll go back on Friday and prepare to feed the new hive - since they have no flying bees, they won’t be bringing in much in the way of food to be storing. However, there was a significant hatching of brood some time around the 13th, so there should be a good supply of flying bees by the 3rd for honey production. DONE - enough flying bees - fed flying swarm instead.

I also need to look in Wood to see if it does still have a capped queen cell (transferred from Poly previously) or if the bees have torn this down, implying they still think they have a viable queen. DONE - still waiting…

I also need to get the smith frames out of Wood and the new hive, once the queening period has settled - both have the queen cells on them at present. - DONE - last one is now in the empty nuc I think

Empty the nuc from Wood that had the old queen in it - return this to Faye.

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Much moving around took place during today’s beginners class - at least they all got to see something interesting!

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There’s still no queen active in Wood, but Poly is doing well.Having checked the hive thoroughly there are no sign of eggs or larvae. The eggs put in last week have not been turned into queen cells, so there’s hope that they still think their queen is active.

On inspecting the other hives we saw several drones flying in and out of hives, so there should at least be some around to mate with, if there are virgin queens in the area.

If there are no eggs by next week, I can either put more eggs in from Poly, or take some eggs from the original (rejected) queen and let them requeen.

In Poly, there were 2 play queen cells, one with 2 eggs in. I destroyed these for now, since they aren’t yet running out of room, and will see if they still want to swarm in a week or so, when I’ll use artifical swarm methods to achieve this.

They’ve stored an awful lot of nectar in the brood box, but only just started drawing out the super, so I’ve moved some frames around to try and encourage better frame usage and prevent overcrowding.

Todo

Check for egg-laying on Saturday - add eggs from one of the other hives.

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Today was the first practical session of the Edinburgh and Midlothian Beekeepers Association Beginner’s class, which was held at our apiary.Faye and I took the group of 9 (divided in 2) through my two hives - Poly is coming on exactly as expected, and just starting to draw out the first super I added.

However, there were no signs of a queen in Wood. Its still a few days early to be conclusive that there is no queen present, but just to be on the safe side, I added a frame of eggs and larvae from Poly - if the newly hatched queen had gone astray, the bees will draw on this frame to create new queen cups and develop a new queen - if she’s around, they’ll just treat them as fresh bees. I marked the frame with a drawing pin, as its often hard to remember which frame to look at when you do these kinds of operations.

Todo

In a week go and check for signs of queen cells on this new marked frame, OR signs of a laying queen.

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Just a few extra tasks completed today.I added a super to Poly, since they are filling out nicely. I also put a feeder on the nuc which the old queen from Wood is in, since I don’t want her dying off before I have properly established a new queen in Wood. Will check in a week’s time for signs of egg-laying in Wood, indicating presence of a new queen.

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A while ago while struggling with the maths of working out the life cycle of bees, I decided to test my programming skills and create a ‘reckoner’ of the life cycle of the different bees.This tool is now freely available for you to use, and is kindly hosted by the Edinburgh Beekeepers’ Association on their website in the [EMBA Downloads](http://www.edinburghbeekeepers.org.uk/downloads.html “” ) section.

Please pass on any comments about this tool to me - it should hopefully be self-explanatory!

EDIT: Now updated to version 4 thanks to comments from Mike Forster and others!

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