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Hive H has settled in and has brood and stores.

It absconded in early August. I returned the colony to the same hive and then moved it to Headington. I put the frames to the front of the hive; fed them with Honey and made a very small entrance. This has encouraged them to produce brood and defend their entrance. I've seen lots of wasps around but none appear to have got in.

The neighbouring hive - Hive B - has absconded or failed. I suspect robbing. Both hives are very near an apple tree which attracts wasps. The return of Hive H to health suggests that they are now willing to defend against wasp attacks.

The colony in Hive B has failed or absconded. The hive is now completely empty.

The colony has always been small. In a year they built only 5 frames of comb (on National deep frames). I thought that maybe the effort of being at height had over-stressed them so I moved the colony from the out apiary to my back garden. I placed them under an apple tree in the hope that they would recover. There is good forage and they were at ground level.

I had seen some coming and going at the hive entrance in recent weeks. It all looked like normal activity. I saw no wasps going in or out. The entrance was partially concealed by apple tree leaves so I thought the colony was ok. I didn't open it.

The position under the apple tree may have encouraged robbing by wasps which I hadn't noticed. The colony may have lost its' Queen. It may even have been the move which killed her - although I was gentle.

Whatever the cause, I noticed unusual activity at the hive entrance yesterday. I checked the removable base board and saw a large amount of sugar on it - clear evidence that there was robbing of crystallised honey. Today I opened the hive and found it utterly empty: no bees; no Queen; no brood; no stores. I have no idea where the Queen and the other bees went.

The 'swarm' which I caught two days ago turned out to be from Hive H. They had absconded from the hive leaving nothing behind - no bees; no brood; no stores - only a few wasps.

I returned on Friday morning before dawn. The box with the bees inside was sealed, so I brought them to Hive H with the intention of combining it. I had two empty supers, newspaper and a queen excluder. I planned to put the newspaper over the brood box, then put the supers with the excluder between them. This would create a space beneath the excluder through which the bees could move. I would have more chance of finding the queen and removing her (I didn't think that I'd be able to save her).

I opened Hive H to find it entirely empty. It was clear that I had re-caught the absconding bees. I blocked the entrance completely and then put the bees back in. I added honey onto the crown board and put the lid back on. They were sealed in, which seemed the best plan in the short term.

Even before dawn there were wasps around the hive. I saw 4 at once at around 0530hrs. Clearly the site has a problem.

I moved the whole hive, with bees inside, to my home apiary. I was all finished by 0640hrs.

They're settling back into their hive in its' new position. I've seen evidence that they're cleaning up cells. There have been dead Varroa on the floor. I've even seen a few new wax platelets. I haven't seen any pollen yet. Maybe it's too soon for brood.

There are wasps here too but I didn't see any getting in.

EDIT 29/08/2017: After I moved the hive and colony to Headington I saw undertaker bees removing dead brood. I think that they did leave brood which I hadn't noticed. That brood would have died from neglect. When they were returned to the hive they would have removed the dead brood. I also saw dead Varroa on the removable base board. This suggests that the brood and Varroa died at the same time, in the cell.

My out-apiary is under sustained attack from wasps.

There are dozens around the apiary. They concentrate their attention on the weakest hives. This has turned out to be hives F and H.

Poor hive H is getting a kicking. I initially put the frames of brood at the back. That was a mistake. The bees did not adequately guard the entrance and this set up the cycle of attack and robbing. I found a large number of bee heads and legs. The bodies will have been eaten - presumably by wasps because I haven't seen any hornets. I moved the frames to the front of the hive and reduced the entrance to about 1cm wide. That stopped the build up of bee body parts. It hasn't stopped the robbing. I saw a wasp enter the hive without being challenged during the 5 minutes that I was watching (near 9pm when the flying bees should have been home).

What to do now? I would like to move the hive away from the wasps but I don't really have space to put hive H at home. I could set up a wasp trap but it won't stop the robbing. I could reduce the entrance way even more but that's pointless if they're not guarding.

I caught a swarm today. It was small - perhaps about the size of an orange once it had clustered. It was stuck to the side of the building where my out-apiary is. I suppose that it came from one of my hives.

I boxed the swarm this afternoon and then moved it to the roof this evening.

The swarm is surely too small to survive the winter so I'm considering adding it to hive H, which is has too few bees.

EDIT 12/08/2017 - this colony of bees had absconded from Hive H.

I had a look into the hives in my out-apiary yesterday. There hasn't been much going on during July to comment on.

All the hives are showing activity. but either there isn't much nectar or they're working on brood production. All the usual pollen, Varroa and cappings which show brood activity. Very little new wax and generally little expansion in stores within the supers.

I think that there has been less nectar, or that the bees have had to travel further for it. Maybe they're expanding brood but I don't have evidence for that.

The wasps have arrived in force, and I found that Hive H was under attack. I had moved the colony from a nucleus hive (containing 5 frames) into a full sized commercial brood body. I placed the frames at the back, away from the entrance. The idea was to encourage comb and brood development at the front of the hive. The actual effect has been to leave the door less well guarded. I found several wasps inside the hive, and the bees were closely covering the brood comb. I moved the comb to the front and reduced the entrance to under 3cm wide.

Hive H has apparently produced no Varroa on its' removable floor. There is another possible explanation - that the wasps have been eating the fallen mites, along with some bees.

Elsewhere, I found that Hive D had a super which was almost full. I placed an empty super and a clearer board beneath it. I hope to have some honey from them in a week or so.

Last weekend my bee group visited my out-apiary in Oxford.

It was a small gathering - 8 people. It might have been larger if I hadn't promised an Attack of the Killer Bees to all who ventured onto the roof. Hive E had been very stressed and its' aggression was difficult to handle.

On the day all the bees were very calm. I don't exactly know why. I think that the June nectar gap may have contributed. My interventions might also have been at fault.

We looked at all the removable boards beneath the mesh floors. I pointed out the evidence of various activities from the detritus which accumulates there. We popped the lids and made sure that the bees had sufficient space to expand.

I did show some brood, and the straight comb which new swarms build. Unfortunately I also found cross combing in the brood box caused by my bright idea to widen the intervals between the frames (to favour Drone production). That's another unnecessary problem caused.

There's a nice write-up about the visit on the OxNatBees blog.

I moved Hive H from my garden to my out-apiary on Friday 30th June. I looked at the removable floor today and found 1 Varroa mite. Just 1 in 8 days. Compare that to Hive H which was dropping 20 per day as a new swarm.

The colony in Hive H has been feral for some time. The colony in Hive F had been a standard bought Buckfast queen 2 or 3 years ago. It's possible that the feral colony is adapting to Varroa and has managed to limit its' numbers. The mite is still present - it's endemic and won't now go away.

I'll see how Hive H fares as it settles in.

It's a familiar and honest complement: "you should sell this". I've heard it several times lately about the honey from my bees. I'm not keen. I like giving it away. That makes people happy in a way that buying it would not. And anyway, Bees can be excellent pets.

Bees mostly look after themselves. They feed themselves; clean up after themselves; take themselves for exercise. They're cheap to to look after once you have a hive and some equipment. They sometimes have surplus honey and it tastes fabulous.

Bees are interesting but not interested. In that respect they're somewhat like a cat. You watch the cat; you care for the cat; you dote on the cat. The cat couldn't care a fig about you and would happily trade you for some other mug with better food. If you died, the cat would leave -- or it would eat you. Either way the cat would be happier than you.

Watch and observe your bees. Be happy. They won't eat your face.

I recently took some honey from Hive A. Most came out as comb but there were also a couple of jars.

Yesterday I returned to Hive A. Some time ago I had put some broken comb pieces onto the crown board. In the usual way the bees had built a large slab of comb around it it and started to fill it. I cleaned up the crown board and then hung the crunched comb in mesh bag overnight.

The honey drained into a jam funnel and into a jar. After filling one jar I started top up a half empty jar which contained honey mentioned in my first paragraph. The two honeys didn't mix, leaving a contrasting layer.

I'm not sure why there is a difference in colour. The lighter honey probably was made during a nectar flow and may be largely monofloral - perhaps from the Horse Chestnut trees which flower around here in spring. The darker honey was there for quite a while and may have been hotter and from a wider variety of plants.

The bees which I've just collected as a swarm for hive H appear small compared to those from established hives. I've found it difficult to provide a photograph to show this. It was obvious when I caught the swarm: these were tiny bees. I've been wrong before so I decided to compare.

I caught 2 bees - one from hive A and one from hive H - on their way out to forage. I put both briefly in the freezer in different sized boxes. The bee from hive H was in a tiny box. It slowed down but was largely unaffected. The bee from hive A was in a bigger box and appeared completely dead and curled up. I photographed them side-by-side but it showed nothing useful. The bee from hive H flew away quite quickly. After a few minutes the bee from hive A revived and also flew off.

The freezer didn't work. I tried the fridge instead. Two new bees in two identical boxes on the same shelf of the fridge. That worked and I got my photograph but I'm not certain which bee was which. Conclusion: I can't tell the difference in size between the two bees.

There is a difference in the coloration of the abdomen which is interesting. In an earlier post I wondered whether the colony in hive E - which came from the same feral colony - were dark bees. I concluded that they were not. This difference in colouration hints that I may have been correct before.

Last night I went to visit my out apiary. As I was pottering around I received a phone call. It's hard to answer when your phone is inside a bee suit.

The call was from the same people who had given me the colony in Hive E. I'd given them some honey and asked for them to call when the feral colony swarmed.

I arrived to find a football sized cluster on their apple tree. They say it's the first swarm of the season - prime swarm.

I made a mess of the knock into the box. Bees flying everywhere. After a bit of a muddle I had most of them in the box. I noticed that at least some of the bees were much smaller than I usual.

Why would bees be small? It could be a genetic adaptation. It could be that they're rearing bees in old brood comb which has been lined with propolis many times, reducing its' internal size. Or I might be mistaken about their size.

The new colony is in a nuc box in my garden. There are 3 empty frames inside so that the bees build comb and use the honey in their stomachs which can be carrier of disease. This morning they're starting on their orientation flights.

There are some patterns and similarities that emerge from watching a group of colonies in an apiary. Here are some from my out-apiary:

Temperament: the colonies are generally fairly calm. Some bees will almost always inspect me, bumping at my head to warn me away, so I always wear a veil. During the summer some of the colonies (D, E) become very defensive. They'll follow for 20+ metres from the hive and they don't readily lose interest. I've been pursued by a cloud of bees. This tendency to follow might be exacerbated by their position on a building roof - in line of sight with no trees or bushes to hide under/behind.

Size: The colonies are usually big. The exception was Hive B, which superseded twice after being established and may have been suffering more than usual from Varroa.

Brood production: The colonies produce lots of brood. The brood area is often full, with hardly any stores. They appear (to me) to produce too much brood but I haven't seen evidence of brood dying from neglect.

Honey production: modest but this might improve. This is only the second year since most of the hives were established. I'm putting in empty frames and I'm not usually feeding, so quite a bit of their forage is going on comb production. Between brood and honey production, I think that the colonies favour brood.

Response to Varroa: they tolerate the Varroa mites but they don't appear to manage them by hygienic behaviours. Lately I've seen very high mite fall in established colonies. Only Hive B seems to have been held back by Varroa.

Robbing: I see no evidence of the colonies robbing each other. I have seen a Bumblebee robbing this year. I saw some wasps last year.

Propolising: The colonies love propolis. A rich, red resiin is daubed over the frame tops; the brood cells and all the joints. The removable floor of Hive D is caked in it. The colony in Hive A carefully apply it where needed. The colonies in the out-apiary just slap it on everywhere. I assume that it comes from the Lime trees because they're so near.

In July last year I wrote about angry bees and fear. I have the fear again.

Hive E is very cross. I think that it may be low on stores. I tried to take the lid off to feed it. They went for me in full attack mode. Buzzng my head and my hands. My legs had at least a dozen bees attached, all trying to sting me.

The fear is my own fault. My body is well covered in a bee suit. My hands are fairly well covered in leather gloves (but nitrile over the top would be better). It's my ankles. They sting my ankles. I went back in and put on thick socks.

I took the lid off and put a good dollop of set honey on the crown board. I was covered in angry bees. I put the lid on and ran round the corner. These bees stay angry and they follow for over 20 metres. I did an I'm covered in bees dance. Still covered. I hid in the corridor which leads to the roof and swept them off. Eventually I got them all off.

Cautiously I went back to the corner to collect my things. Oh dear. In my haste I didn't put the lid on properly. I walked back to the hive, replaced the lid and ran around the corner again. Once more the dance. Once more the lengthy removal of a dozen or more bees. Finally, I was free to leave.

Before I left I had a quick look at all of the floors. Hives C, E and F all showed very heavy Varroa fall. Hives D and G had very few Varroa, but I might have cleared the floor more recently than the others.

Edit: there was a very noticeable smell when I opened Hive E. I can't describe it but it wasn't nectar or one of the normal smells. I assume that it's the smell of alarm.

The Limes are flowering in Headington. The Limes are flowering in Oxford. There are no bees on any of them.

I'm told that Limes only give nectar when the conditions are right. It has to have rained (which it hasn't recently) and it has to be humid (which it isn't ). These two presumably go together. The result is that Limes are only said to yield approximately every 7 years.

The National Bee Unit issues alerts. I received an alert today (15th June) about starvation. I received one last year on 30th June. It's getting to be a habit.

I've been anticipating a nectar flow from the Lime trees next to my out apiary but it now looks like that won't happen. I visited the hives this evening and it looks pretty certain that the two newly established colonies (Hives F and G) have very low stores.

I don't like feeding. It's an intervention and, like all interventions, I'm reluctant to interfere*. Feeding will change the bee's behaviour. I suspect that once you start feeding you'll have to continue. It's the same with watering plants. Let the bees/plants adapt to their conditions. Another gripe is that sugar from feeding may end up in harvested honey.

I've put the case against feeding. Now the case for in favour: I don't want the two new colonies to die. I think that C, D and E will have sufficient stores. F and G do not. Hive F is the one dropping dozens of Varroa. I could bear to let that fail - except that it might spread those Varroa. The colony in Hive G is different. I think that it has come from one of the feral colonies. It's showing characteristics similar to Hive D and has relatively low Varroa.

The more you want for the bees, the more you'll intervene. A low intervention bee keeper should try to want less. I want some honey. I want it to be fantastic. I want the bees to be healthy. I want them to survive. I'm always drifting towards increased intervention.

I will probably feed Hives F and G. I have some 2016 set honey which is suitable.

* Yes, I take honey and that is an intervention. Yes, I muck about with queen excluders and I rearrange the supers. Yes I do look at the brood combs.