Blog

There is a swarm near my out-apiary which may have come from my hives. I tried to retrieve it this early morning.
I think that these bees have ceased to behave like a swarm and will settle on the tree. They didn't move yesterday when the weather was good. It's due to be showery again today.

I went back to the swarm this morning at 0430hrs. It's about 8m from the ground, on a tree immediately outside the building where my apiary is sited. The thought struck me that I might get it down with some fishing line and a spoon.

I threw the spoon and line out over the branch and let it trail to the ground. I cautiously dropped the spool of line and then went down. I put a white sheet out and a box. I gave the branch a good, hard shake. It turns out that bees hang on very tightly.

After a few more hard shakes my 5.5kg mono-filament fishing broke. I tried again with the same result. Stronger line might have helped.

A few bees fell out. I've put them into my bait hive in the vague hope that they'll tell the swarm. I don't expect that to work but it was somewhere safe to put them, away from people.

My concern is that this colony will become a nuisance once it starts getting robbed in earnest. It's 8m from the ground, so maybe not. I would prefer not to find out. I wonder where to get a Cherry-Picker...

A week ago I moved the Queen excluder in Hive D. Yesterday I had a look inside. The Queen appears to be in the lower box now. The sealed brood, including Drone brood has mostly hatched out. Some Drones were milling about above the excluder. Drones are too big to fit through an excluder so they were trapped.

I confidently started taking the frames and shaking them in front of the hive. After about 3 frames I started to worry that maybe the Queen was in the upper box. If I accidentally dumped her in front of the hive she might not be allowed back inside. I stopped shaking frames and decided to return after all of the sealed brood had hatched.

While looking for Drones I noticed a Queen cell in the upper box, above the excluder. This Queen will be trapped when she emerges so I should be able to catch her. Should I release her or move her to another hive? If I release her then Hive D will probably swarm which has advantages and disadvantages. I haven't decided what to do. My inclination is to release her into the lower box and allow the colony to deal with it.

Yesterday I was called to my out-apiary because of a swarm. It had settled in a tree right in front of the building where my elevated hives are kept. The swarm was about 10m up the tree; the hives are at a height of about 20m. There was no way to reach the swarm.

I had a spare hive ready for this. I put it out immediately, ensuring that there was a bit of used comb inside to give it a more hive-like smell. All afternoon the swarm stayed on the tree. After nearly 6 hours I had to go home. This morning I'll find out whether they have moved on. Hopefully their scouts have found and liked the new hive.

Immediately after setting out the new hive I tried to see which of my hives the swarm had emerged from. I couldn't tell. The entrance traffic still seemed busy in each hive. I expect to see a large amount of capping wax on the removable floor after a swarm, dropped as they fill up on honey, but it seemed a normal amount.

I was cautious about opening the other hives. I supposed that alarm smells from neighbouring hives might put scouts off (although I've no evidence that it will). I had a look into Hive C but it seemed normal. I looked into Hive D and found that moving the excluder has trapped drones in the super box, and that the Queen appears to be in the lower box. I noted a Queen cell in the upper box, above the excluder. Hive F is still dropping Varroa, but I imagine that quite a few of the phoretic mites have infected the newly laid brood. More on that later.

Last night I moved Hive E to my out-apiary and returned Hive B to my home. The move went well with no problems.

Hive E contains the feral swarm from Barton caught at the very start of August 2016. It built up strongly before Autumn and is now a vigorous colony. I wanted it to be in central Oxford where its' strength is a match for the position - lots of forage but a big climb to the roof. I wanted Hive B to be in my garden where it can quietly tick along without bothering family or neighbours.

There are dangers in moving an occupied hive:

• The colony can overheat in transit, causing the comb to soften and collapse. I read that this usually kills the colony.
• The frames can slap together, damaging brood and bees.
• A substantial bump can cause bees to fall to the floor, blocking the ventilation and causing the colony to overheat.
• A bump to side of the hive can cause the boxes to slide and open up, releasing alarmed bees.

None of the above happened during my move.

It's usual when transporting bees to exchange the crown board and roof for a ventilated screen. I don't have one so I secured the hive together with straps and lifted it into the back of a car. I opened the windows and cruised down the hill.

My out apiary is on the roof of a building with an automatic door. It doesn't stay open for long enough for me to get the hive out of the car and inside the building. I had to put the hive down gently whilst I opened the door. I may have looked rather comical trying to get back in time. Last time I dropped an empty hive on the ground. Once, but not twice.

Up went the hive and into its' place. I opened the door and a few bees came out and milled around.

I then packaged up Hive B and did the same in reverse.

This morning I looked in through the door of both hives. The hive floor was clear in both, indicating that the comb had not collapsed. I think that all the visible bees were moving. I peered into Hive E using a strong torch while the sliding screen was out. The inside of the hive must have been cool because the bees were clustered as if in a swarm. They were beautiful.

I looked at Hive F's removable floor again on Tuesday 9th May. I counted 24 Varroa mites which had fallen out of the colony. That's 8 per day. Will they survive?

UPDATE: I visited the hive on 12th May after dark. There were another 32 mites. I've counted 88 mites in 7.5 days, an average of about 12 per day. That's very high. This colony has been untreated for a couple of years but it was from a bought queen before that. I don't think much of its' ability to manage Varroa.

I've made a small adjustment to the Commercial frames which should work just as well in an National deep (brood) box.

I took an old National brood frame and removed the two bars which are set at the bottom. These are 6mm x 8mm x 360mm. I cut them into 4 equal 90mm lengths. I glued and nailed these to the sides of the top bars. I made these adjustments to 3 of the frames.

The result is that the frames are spaced at 12mm apart instead of 8mm. The Commercial box fits 11 instead of 12 frames.

I moved the queen excluded in Hive D yesterday. It is now between the brood box and the supers, where it ought to be.

I moved the frames from the super to a fresh super box, shaking each a little in the hope of moving the queen down. She leaves behind plenty of brood on the super frames, including Drone.

Drone can't fit between the bars of a queen excluder so I'm going to have to release them at some point. I'm not sure how to do that...

Hive E was populated from a feral swarm at the very start of August 2016. Eight months have elapsed since they were moved from the Nucleus hive into a National brood body. Yesterday I opened up.

The purpose of the inspection was two-fold: to check the condition of the colony and to reconfigure the hive.

I want to move this hive to my out-apiary so I needed to know that it is in good condition. It is. There is plenty of brood and signs of recently laid eggs. There are drones in the hive and drone brood. The brood is laid in solid blocks, suggesting healthy Queen and healthy brood. The arrangement is a little confusing - spread over almost all the frames in the hive. The comb was almost all very regular. One frame had a bulge of less than a centimetre at one side which was matched by a couple of adjacent combs further out.

I have a longer term plan to standardise on Commercial brood frames. These are too big for National brood bodies so I've bought a Hamilton Converter from Thorne. It allows fewer frames but they're larger. I will have to swap out the National frames for the Commercial ones over time. In the short term the National frames just fit on the runners. They too short and too narrow at the sides so I'm expecting the bees to build extra comb to fill the gaps. It's a little messy but not a big problem.

I opened the hive and lifted all the frames out into a Commercial body. I then fitted the Hamilton converter. It was a tight fit which gave me the fear. I didn't want to start woodworking on an open hive with bees everywhere. I pushed and it fit into place. I put the most used frames back into the converted hive, leaving 2 out. Irritatingly one of the frames had a substantial number of eggs and very young brood. I put an eke on and wedged the frame into it at the top of the hive. The nurse bees might find and raise the brood but I'm not optimistic. Not my best work.

The temperament of this colony is very calm. They just went about their business. One bee stung me through my glove but that was all.

Thorne, the equipment supplier, have been sending newsletters recently. The latest contains an interesting article about increasing the number of drones in a hive.

The article points out that the Drone population in feral hives is up to 20% of the total. Drones are males and are necessary for the less visible part of sexual reproduction in the colony which happens in flight. Having an adequate number of Drones will improve the chances of a colony passing on its' genes. It may also improve temperament and reduce swarming, presumably because the colony is achieving its' biological need to reproduce.

Framed hives discriminate against Drones because the Hoffman spacing is too small to accommodate the deeper cells. Drone brood are pushed to the margins of the brood area, reducing the number of Drones which can be produced.

Interventions performed by conventional bee keepers further reduce the population of drones by damaging cappings during inspections and by bio-technical controls (ie Drone uncapping to manage Varroa). These don't apply to my bee keeping.

Adapting a framed hive to allow for deeper cells should be easy enough. Wider spacers can be used, either as glued on blocks; frame spacers or nails which set width. I will look for a way to adapt existing frames, starting with the glue method. I will report on this in a later blog post.

I put the a swarm from Helen into Hive F on the evening of 2nd May. I had a look at the entrance and the removable hive floor this morning.

The colony appears to be settling in well, despite the colder May weather. There is shed wax on the removable hive floor; there are bees coming and going. It appears that they've been building comb and orienting themselves to their new area. I didn't look for pollen, but I wouldn't expect to see it this soon anyway.

I was very suprised to see a large number of Varroa on the hive floor. I counted 32, which is approximately 9 per day. A conventional bee keeper might urgently treat for Varroa in this situation. I'm inclined to wait and see what happens.

There may be exceptional reasons for the high level of mite drop in this new colony. They were contained for in the skep with a sheet under them before I collected so the varroa may have been shed over a longer time. I whacked the skep to dislodge them so that they fell in a heap on the hive floor. The fall of around 50cm may have dislodged more mites than would otherwise fall. Perhaps this colony is tolerating a higher number of mites. The parent colony seems to be thriving.

Introducing a new swarm to the apiary does raise concerns for me. This colony has not been feral for as long as the colonies from hives C, D and E. They may have genes which help tolerate Varroa and their attendant diseases but it is less likely. This colony may also introduce new strains of viruses which are present in the existing hives. There are known several strains of DWV. I consider this risk low because these strains tend to be geographically separate. It would be unlucky to introduce a new one. There is a risk of exposing the new colony to diseases already present in the apiary. I have seen evidence which suggests ABPV in Hive D.

I'll have to see what happens.

A look at the weather at our nearest official weather station at Benson aerodrome shows that May has not been very nice so far.

There has been consistent higher pressure at around 1020 hectopascals. This hasn't been accompanied by late spring warmth. Day temperatures for the last week averaged 11.3C; night temperatures averaged 7.0C. The wind has been mostly consistent at around 8 knots.

The new colony in Hive F will have to start foraging soon. I hope that the weather improves. It looks fairly similar for the next few days.

The bees will ignore empty frames which are above an excluder if there is no comb in them. I put a super on Hive D earlier this year but then took the excluder away then the bees weren't using the super. Now they are using it - for brood rearing. This is inconvenient because I hoped to take honey from it.

I have left the excluder out of a hive before with same result. The Queen will lay where the temperature is optimal. When the outside weather is cooler this will be at the top of the hive. It may be lower in the height of summer but I haven't observed this.

One of the reasons for selecting the Commercial brood body was to give the Queen more brood area than she could reasonably lay in and sufficient space for stores. The supers were for surplus honey.

Moving the Queen out of the super shouldn't be very difficult: move the frames to a new box, shaking them and exposing them to the light. The Queen should run from the light and hide in the Commercial box as the super is emptied. The existing brood will hatch in time and their cells will be available for honey storage. The main problem (apart from angry bees) will be if there are Drone cells. The Drones cannot fit through the excluder and so get stuck at the top, clogging the excluder. There is also a possibility that the Queen may run out of places to lay and become honey bound. Harvesting the super may sort that out by forcing the bees to eat stores in the brood area.

I'm supposed to be a lower intervention bee keeper. Here I am trying to force the Queen to lay here but not there. It's not really where I want to be but this is the consequence of wanting to extract honey.

For the second year running the Sparrows are foraging.

There were quite a few bees crawling near my home hives in a state of moribund helplessness. There was no chance that they could get to the hive entrance and even if they did I doubt whether the guards would have let them back in. Some may have been exhausted, but most either had deformed wings or paralysis. No way back.

Their distress has attracted a few sparrows who feed on them. They perch on nearby fences; they perform a fluttering swoop to grab a bee on the ground; they fly off quickly.

This arrangement probably suits all. The sparrows get a meal. The bees are put out of their misery. The grass is cleared of bees which sting bare feet.

The bird which I saw today was a male House Sparrow.

I collected a new swarm today from Helen, another low intervention bee keeper who has a Top Bar Hive near the John Radcliffe Hospital. She had kindly caught them in a skep with a sheet under it. Collecting it was simple: tie up the sheet and carry it all away.

The colony from which it comes has been untreated for 2 years. Before that it was intensively managed by a keeper in Wolvercote.

I have placed it in my out-apiary in a new Commercial brood box: Hive F. I'm using frames without foundation, with only the lolly stick guides.

The arrival of the bees was easy; the arrival of the hive was not. I stacked all the hive parts together (roof; floor; crown board; brood box and 2 supers) and secured them with one hive strap. On arrival I hurried. I was afraid that the bees might overheat. The hive parts had been knocked askew so that that strap was slightly loose. Unsurprisingly the whole thing clattered to the floor. The damage was minimal: minor dings and dents and a slightly broken shallow frame. More haste gives less speed.

Dropping the hive was not the only unforced error. I meant to take a legless hive stand and some bricks to make a simple plinth. I forgot to take either. What will my bike feel like carrying 8 house bricks? I'm not sure that I want to find out.

I've been looking at the removable floor of Hive A. There is a steady fall of Varroa mites there. I checked three times and the average is about one mite falling per hour. Some were still alive; a few were clearly immature.

This rate of mite drop puts the colony at severe risk of colony collapse, according to the BeeBase document "Managing Varroa".

I have seen quite a few crawling bees around the hive. Some have deformed wings, but not all. I'd be more concerned if this hadn't been the same last year.

We'll see what happens to the colony. My expectation is that it will not collapse, and that this rate of mite drop is seasonal and bearable.

If this colony survives this round of severe Varroa infestation then I'd say they have developed tolerance

Taking honey out of a hive will inevitably lead to equipment, empty comb and wax which is covered in a residue of honey. I don't like to waste this so I have put this in the hive or nearby for the bees to lick clean. I'm beginning to think that this is a bad idea.

The first problem is hygiene. Honey can transmit serious bee diseases such as American Foul Brood. This won't be a problem if you're able to return honey from the same hive, or at least the same apiary but it can be catastrophic.

The second problem is nuisance. I put a large tray of cappings out in my garden for the bees to clean up. It attracted hundreds of bees and some wasps. This is disconcerting for people nearby.

The third problem is robbing. Free honey will attract wasps and bees from all over. Guard bees are said to permit or reject incoming bees on the basis of smell. Inside the hive the bees are passing around the fresh nectar and honey to each other so that they all smell alike. I think that when robbers get in and steal honey it masks their smell and makes the other bees more likely to accept them. Robbing can get out of hand, presumably because the robbing hive smells like the robbed and is waggle-dancing that it's the best place to forage.

The latter paragraph about robbing is informed guesswork.