Down to earth with a bump...

So far I have learned one very important lesson in beekeeping above all others. Just when you think you're starting to get the hang of things your bees bring you back to down to earth with a bump.

Last week I found queen cells. Rushing back to solicit advice from my internet mentors on the BBKA forums I returned the following day and took the, with hindsight, misguided decision based on the fact that the hive isn't full to simply knock down the queen cells and see if removing the QX from beneath the Super supressed the urge to Swarm. While removing the cells last week I found a sealed cell in the middle of one of the frames. At that point I stopped removing the cells and re-examined every frame to try and find the queen. There she was, the showers last week had presumably held them off from swarming and I thought all was well.

Yesterday I re-examined the hive. Reaching the brood nest, it was immediately apparent that I had no eggs in any of the frames and checking each frame twice confirmed my fears that I had no queen.

Further examination also revealed another Sealed queen cell and 4-5 uncapped cells. I removed the sealed cell as, given the time frame (it definitely wasn't there last weekend), my fear was it was an "emergency" cell made with an older larvae.

I've currently left the "best" 3 uncapped cells in place and my intention is to return tonight, reinspect the frame and reduce this down to a single cell in the hope of reducing the chances that I'll further weaken the hive by allowing cast swarms to leave.

I'm really annoyed with myself at the moment, I've lost a queen, and a number of bees although not so many that I actually realised they'd swarmed until I couldn't find any eggs and I could have prevented it by trying to manage their desire to swarm rather than bulldoze over it. Given their overall size, still only covering nine frames in total I didn't want to try and split them this year, but instead I've probably put them in a worse situation than if I'd just taken the queen, a frame of brood and a few bees and stuck them in a Nuc.

On a brighter note, our little swarm that we hived a few weeks back, now has a mated, laying queen in residence, so we do at least still have two queenright hives on site.

Bee Web Cam

Not mine, but if you point your browser to: http://www.sysonby.com/beecam/ You should find a webcam pointing at the entrance to a small observation hive. I believe that at night it switches to an Internal IR camera so you can see what is going on inside.

Very interesting just watching the comings and goings.

I found a bunch of queen cells in my hive yesterday so I'm going back in a bit to try and sort it out, more news later...

Bees in your hair.

Pop Quiz.
A bee flies into your hair, you hear its buzzing getting more and more frantic. What do you do? What do you do?

A) Attempt to brush the bee out of your hair using your fingers, an uncapping fork or that comb you carry for just such emergencies?

B) Administer a slap (or two) to your Noggin in the general vicinty of the buzzing noise

C) Enquire politely and calmly whether the guy stood laughing next to you will remove the offending bee.

D) Run off down the path, arms flailing, squealing "It's in my hair! It's in my hair" at a pitch audible only to bats and dolphins while your half de-veiled, Beekeeping SO attempts to catch you up.

In my experience the most effective are: B, C and A in that order.

D, while not effective at all, does provide significant entertainment to all around within sight/earshot of the afflicted party. No, I did not laugh as I removed the sting. Certain tender areas were well within striking distance.

Hiving the Swarm

Well, I was disappointed for a while that we didn't get to collect the swarm, then it turns out that it was a school playground. I know they can be about as gentle as they come, but I'm pretty sure the current Laurel and Hardy of the beekeeping world would have found some way to wind them up.

I did at least remember to take up the camera, unfortunately the location of the hive didn't really lend itself to letting them walk up the ramp and looking at them, there aren't a great deal of bees in the box so they might yet end up boosting the two smaller hives.

Swarm!

Fortunately not one of ours. As ever events conspire against us. Last time the allotment key was on its way to Oxford, this time the Mrs has the car with all my kit in it (ready for a swarm) and my colleague is in a meeting. While we were trying to figure out how to get to this one, still sat happily in a tree, a Commercial Beekeeper has agreed to collect it and hand it over to us later today.

Now where did I put that camera?

Playing with Photos

OK, I thought the page looked a little dull as is. I'm not entirely sure that sticking that particular photo behind the title pane necessarily works that well, but I'll leave it like this for now.