More bait hive action

Posted on May 23, 2024 by james

My concerns about one of my colonies potentially swarming were not helped today by far more action around my bait hive. I tried to follow the flight paths of the scouts though and they seem to be heading off the property to the north west so (crossed fingers) they’re not mine. I guess we’ll find out for sure soon.

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No dig diary, 20th May 2024

Posted on May 23, 2024 by james

Well, I’ve run out of compost for sowing at the moment, but I can buy a little time perhaps. I’ve not sown carrots nor parsnips yet due to the weather, so today was time to get on with them. I was going to experiment with multiple sowings of parsnips, but it’s way too late for that now so they all went in together. There’s still time for more sowings of carrots though, so they didn’t 🙂

I also got a bit more weeding done and spread more woodchip on some of the paths that still need doing. I had something like eight dumpy bags full of woodchip when I started and now I’m down to the last two because so much needs redoing. The old stuff has just been swallowed up by the mud.

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Memory Lane, 10th June 2023: This is why you want a bait hive

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

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.

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An odd swarm call

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

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…

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Oilseed rape flowers are disappearing

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

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.

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No dig diary, 19th May 2024

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

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?

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Memory Lane, 6th June 2023: First mangetout

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

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.

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So sow!

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

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?

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It’s a bee day

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

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.

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Memory Lane, 4th June 2023: I am the daddy!

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

Well, to these little chaps, anyhow. Not a great photo, but they’re the first to hatch of this year’s batch.

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