Not my nineteenth nervous breakdown, though I feel I could be excused if it were.
I was called out this evening to have a look at this swarm that a couple had discovered entering their chimney and smoked back out again.
Well I tried and tried and tried, but I couldn’t get them to shift. Then I realised that the wall was buzzing and cleared lots of them out of the way.
I don’t reckon they’ll survive that long in there, but there’s very little I can do about them now.
Or perhaps not. Lots of activity around my home bait hive, though I didn’t see (nor hear) them arrive.
But when I went to move them in the evening, there was no sign of them. I think I need to have a better look inside. There’s far too much activity for just scouts, and they’re no longer showing scout-like behaviour. And if there are bees in residence, I want to move them and put up a replacement bait hive.
One the rain started this morning, I retired to the workshop for the day.
I was casting around for things to do when I realised that I had sufficient bits to make two more fat dummies, so I got those done. Given that I’m using four per hive in the general case, taking the opportunity to add to my collection certainly can’t hurt.
I’m quite possibly going to need more super frames shortly, too. But making them is such a faff. So, as I already have a brood frame jig, I thought I’d make one for constructing the super frames (I use Manleys). I had a dig about in the scrap pile and turned up some bits of ply and pine that I thought should do the job. A bit of sawing, gluing and screwing later and I have this.
Obviously I had to take it for a test drive, so I grabbed twenty side bars and ran a bead of glue through the channel at the top.
And then slotted them into the jig, making sure they were all the right way around.
Top bars are put in place and gently seated with a mallet if required.
Then out comes the nailer/stapler and the top bars are stapled into place.
Turn the whole thing over
Fit one of the bottom bars in place and nail it.
Then pull out the retaining bars and they’re done.
If I were making the frames foundationless then I’d probably fit both bottom bars and staple them in place. For the moment though, I have foundation to use up.
Rain, rain and more rain was the forecast for today, but I was able to get out early doors and finish spreading compost on the new flower bed and dump a couple of barrow loads on a veggie bed that isn’t quite ready yet. At last I now have an empty compost bay. I’ve already got stuff queuing up to go into it. I guess that’s one of tomorrow’s jobs.
I was asked today if I could deal with a swarm that had turned up at a local church. Apparently it had been there a day or two and no-one had thought of me before. I got there and found it sitting nicely on the wall next to the main door.
I’d just got suited up and laid everything out to catch them when suddenly they all flew up into the air from the bivouac and disappeared off in a south-westerly direction. I’ve no idea where they went. Hopefully it won’t have been down someone’s chimney. All I was left with were small patches of wax on the wall.
With all the driving around I’ve done because of this bee swarm in the house, I thought I might as well drop off a bait hive at an apiary I had to empty a couple of weeks back. The water company needed to do some work very close to the hives and the workers were understandably uncomfortable about doing so with the bees present.
I’d had the impression from the owners that the facility was unused (possibly a miscommunication there), so when I move the bees back I’ll have to site them further away. Meantime it looks as though they’ve finished the work they were doing, so leaving a bait hive on site shouldn’t cause too much consternation.
I’m not sure how many parts there are going to bee (ho ho) to this. Hopefully not many.
I went down to have a look at the swarm this morning and it’s not good. The hole the bees are using for access is rather larger than I expected. It has been used to run a cable into the house for an outside light, but the owner tells me that it has been there far longer than that. I really don’t think I can get the bees out.
It has been suggested that I use a joss stick to smoke them out, but I don’t fancy hot ash or embers dropping into a void when I have no idea what’s there. The last thing I need to do is to start a house fire. It would get rid of the bees, but it’s a little extreme.
I have decided that the solar greenhouse shall henceforth be known as “Frankenstein’s greenhouse” because it has been stitched together from bits I’ve dug up from all over the place, many of which bear no relation to each other.
I’ve now finished the majority of the construction work for the frame, just the glazing and cladding of the north-east wall to go I think. Then I can fill the twenty litre black jugs with water and away we go.
As I was about to sit down to dinner on Saturday evening, the owner of a farm where I have some hives turned up to tell me that a swarm (possibly or possibly not from one of my hives; I hope not) had moved into his house (which he is currently renting out) through a small hole in the wall and taken up residence in the ceiling void above the kitchen. Unfortunately they’re then using the gaps around the ceiling to get into the kitchen itself, upsetting the tenants.
I’m not sure there’s much I can do to help, but I’ll have a look tomorrow morning.
Before heading off to the “Team Bees” apiary, I went through my hives at home. Nothing too exciting going on… One colony needed supers and another looks to be superseding. In another colony I found the queen, but most of her red paint spot has rubbed off. I trapped her in a marking cage and repainted the spot, then left her there whilst I inspected the other frames. By the time I put her frame back in the hive, workers had piled onto the top of the cage and almost wiped the paint spot off again! No big deal. It’s better than it was, so I let them get on with it.
My plan at the “Team Bees” apiary was to inspect the colony and replace undrawn frames with “fat dummies” as part of my experiment to run hives as “nine over nine” this year. When we got there it was clear that the queen had gone into overdrive and actually of the twenty-two frames in the double brood box nest, only four frames in the bottom box remained undrawn. That was sufficient to use the fat dummies, but I had to move two frames from the top box down to the bottom box to make room. The queen has been laying like crazy too. Quite a few frames in the top box were solid capped worker brood. I suspect it’s going to be a very busy hive soon. I’ll have to take some supers with me next week in case they’re needed.
