Because if a swarm ends up somewhere like this, it gets expensive for someone.
I really couldn’t deal with this. At least some of the tiles would have to come off for a start and a few of them were already cracked and presumably couldn’t be put back. Neither am I a builder.
This one I had to leave to someone who knew how to make good again afterwards.
I received a call about a swarm this afternoon, but it didn’t go quite the way I expected…
The caller wanted to know if I had a box he could use to keep a swarm that had arrived in his garden. Seems an odd request. Why would I be selling hives? Or perhaps he didn’t realise quite how much a hive costs and thought people just give them away? As it happens, until I get these brood boxes made up I have absolutely nothing anyhow. If I have a swarm arrive myself at the moment I shall be madly assembling kit in the workshop 😀
As the call went on it transpired that he knew absolutely nothing about bees or beekeeping. Now I’m all in favour of people taking beekeeping up as a hobby, but not if you have no clue what you’re actually doing. And it’s not like there isn’t a fair amount to know, even to just get started.
Somehow I don’t think this is going to end up the way he thought…
And right next to some of my hives, too. Hopefully there’s at least some Spring honey there to be had, though if they’ve eaten it all on the days they couldn’t fly I shouldn’t be entirely surprised.
Anyhow, it means it’s time to go and put some clearer boards on and we’ll see what transpires.
More sowing in the greenhouse today. Mostly climbing beans and cucurbits — the stuff that needs something bigger than a module tray. Beans mostly seem to take care of themselves, but the last few years I’ve had problems getting cucurbits to germinate, especially the squashes and courgettes. I’ve thought about taking the covers off the propagators during the day to limit the heat and then replacing them in the evening to see if that helps. I reckon it gets pretty hot inside the propagator trays during the daytime. Perhaps first I should stick a thermometer in. Get some actual evidence first, hey?
I’ve never tried this variety before. They’re huge! Some pods are easily 100mm long. We’ll have to see how they go down with the rest of the family.
With my new-found space in the greenhouse, it’s time to catch up on all the sowing that I haven’t done for the last month because of the miserable weather. It’s quite a pile, having gone through my plan and dug out all the seeds that need dealing with. I’ve decided to alternate small groups of seeds with other jobs and when I run out of space (inevitable) I’ll take over some of my father-in-law’s greenhouse that he’s not using at the moment. Then just keep going until I’m done. Which may be some time 😀 Did I say it was a big pile?
This morning I inspected the hives in my home apiary. Mostly they’re looking good. I had to add a super to a couple of colonies and a second brood box to another, found a queen and marked her. One colony has left me guessing however…
I opened up the hive and fairly quickly saw eggs, so clearly the queen has been present in the last three days. As I went through the frames I found three sealed queen cells and a fourth that had been torn open from the side but was still sealed at the end.
The obvious initial conclusion would be that they’ve swarmed in the last couple of days, but there’s been no activity at my bait hives (I’d expect to see at least some activty, even if they decided they didn’t want to be there eventually) and the weather has really not been swarming weather over the last few days. So the queen may still be present and the bees are waiting to swarm. But it has been lovely today, so why haven’t they gone if so?
Alternatively it may be a supersedure. The relatively small number of queen cells might suggest as much. But they still might swarm off one of the remaining queen cells.
So, I tore down one of the cells that was protruding below the bottom rail of the frame, because it was most likely to get damaged anyhow, then chose the best of the remaining two and tore down the other. If they want to supersede they still can, but if they’re swarming hopefully there’ll only be the one swarm and perhaps they’ll find my bait hive. Or I might just have lost a load of bees already and haven’t realised 😀
I could perhaps split them, leaving a frame of eggs with the flying bees, but I’m going to gamble on the supersedure I think.
In the afternoon I visited three other sites, one to add a super and the others to set out bait hives. Nothing much exciting there.
Well, to these little chaps, anyhow. Not a great photo, but they’re the first to hatch of this year’s batch.
I finally finished making up all my super frames and got them stacked up at the bee shed ready to go. It’s been a bit of a slog getting these done, but I really ought to try to get through a few brood frames now as well. Perhaps it can wait a few days though? I also have six brood boxes to make up. Before I do those however I’d like to make up a jig for assembling them so that it’s easy to get the sides aligned with the right spacing for the rails and frame lugs.
More planting out today, mostly lettuces and salad onions that I don’t need filling up the greenhouse any more. Time for them to be in the ground outside.
Most of the tomatoes, the aubergines and peppers/chiles were potted on, too. They’re really not large enough to warrant going into the ground in the polytunnel and greenhouse yet. They ought to be, but not this year. It feels as though some of them have just stopped growing altogether.
Now I have room in the greenhouse to start sowing again.
