Weather: very warm with temperatures 22°C to 26°C. Set to continue fine.
Forage: Rosebay Willowherb finishing, golden rod, hibiscus, Himalayan Balsam and Rubeckia
Activity looks to be slowing down, not much new stores coming into the supers. Will start to inspect fortnightly rather than weekly.
Apidea has a queen but no eggs and very few bees.
weather: temperatures between 20°C – 22°C. Much warmer and sunnier. Set to continue for the next 10 days.
Forage: continues with Ragwort, Himalayan Balsam, Rosebay Willowherb and Veronica
Colonies seem to be doing much better and there is still nectar coming in. The frames in the supers are starting to be capped, but I need to rearrange the frames to ensure that all get drawn out.
The Apidea that I made up from Flax has a queen that has emerged but very few bees. So decided to top up with more bees from Flax. They have drawn two of the frames and stored some nectar, Probably too early for the Queen to have mated
Weather: Temperatures 17ºC -22ºC but with lots of rain and heavy showers most days. Set to improve.
Forage: Ragwort, Buddleia, Rosebay Willowherb, Himalayan Balsam, and Golden Rod just starting.
Not sure what’s happening with the Flax colony. There were sealed QCs, torn down QCs and 1 charged cell. But there also appears to be eggs and larvae. The sealed QCs don’t look to be viable – candled one and it had a small undeveloped larva. However, decided to make up and Apidea with the other one. Left bees in for 2 days, but most have left and probably returned back to Flax. So perhaps the Buckfast queen is still present but took time to come into lay?
Supers being worked and starting to get filled up.
Weather: changeable with showers, temperatures 17°C to 20°C.
Forage: Buddleia, Ragwort, Rosebay Willowherb and privet
The quen from Flax that I banked and stored in cyan perished. Not sure if she starved or was killed, but from the state of her looks to have happened early on..
Weather: temperatures have been between 20°C – 22°C. Bees very busy, but the forecast is for much more changeable weather with quite a few showers. Temperatures set to go down into the late teens.
Forage: Buddleia, Privet just starting, Ragwort, RoseBay Willowherb, bramble looks to be finishing.
Most of the colonies seem to be bringing in plenty of stores . New Buckfast queens arrived on 2nd July and so some of the colonies were manipulated to potentially accommodate being re-queened. I couldn’t find a queen in the Indigo colony and so decided to leave alone. This meant that I changed plan and removed the queen from Flax and banked her before introducing one of the new Buckfast queens. If indigo doesn’t have a queen I’ll put the old queen (now banked) back.
Bees at home are very aggressive at the moment and starting to come at me even when not close to the hives. Hopefully this behaviour settles down otherwise I’ll remove colonies to the river Mole apiary.
Weather: really improved with temperatures climbing to 20°C – 23°C. Set to continue with a mini heatwave forecast for the coming week.
Forage: Bramble, rosebay Willowherb, Ragwort and Buddleia just beginning. Checking my forage notes from last year season looks to be about 10 days ahead.
Main flow has really started with the main colonies adding a super in just a week. Not sure how long it will last with the forage being 10 days in advance of last year.
Flax colony looks to have hatched out a Queen but there were still 2 sealed Queen cells, so squished one and put one in an Apidea with Bees also from Flax.
Thursday, 27th – inspected River Mole colonies. Queen cells in Indigo so needed to make a nuc split (now called Jade) with queen from Indigo.
Weather: some heavy showers, with temperatures between 16°C to 18°C. Forecast is for fine weather and temperatures to rise in the coming week.
Forage: bramble, elderflower, cow parsley, and lime.
Looks like the Bees in the river Mole apiary are bringing in some stores, but still slow in the home apiary colonies. Decided that the swarm I caught in the bait hive was queenless with no sign of a queen or eggs after two weeks. So united on the 18th with the original queen from Flax, which was in a nuc – Indigo.
Looks like the Buckfast Queens I’ve ordered will be delayed for three weeks because of bad weather so will need to reassess which colonies I re-queen and whether I still go for a split with Aqua..
Weather: fine with temperatures between 16ºC – 18ºC, cool on the evenings
Forage: bramble elder flower and cow parsley continuing
Moved swarm in bait hive to River Mole apiary as well as old queen from Flax in 3 frame nuc.
Still nothing in any of the supers – very strange
Ordered 2 Buckfast queens as I’m not happy with how some of the colonies are performing. Will use 1 in Flax and decide whether to split Aqua or requeen Green
Weather: same as last week with temperatures between 15ºC – 18ºC
Forage: Bramble just b starting, elderflower, pyracantha – appear to be in June gap
Found lots of dead bees in front of 3 of the hives when I cleared the weeds. Not sure what’s happened,m could be poisoning as I checked for signs of disease didn’t see anything untoward. Some of the colonies appear to be shrinking in size – again not sure why.
Denim look to have DLW or DLQ – so united with Cyan on 5th June
6th June – captured swarm in bait hive – probably not prime judging by number of bees
Weather: fine with temperatures 15ºC – 20ºC.
Forage:Hawthorn, elderflower and cow parsley
Bees don’t seem to be doing very well, some colonies diminishing in size. Not bringing much nectar in, similar to reports from other beekeepers. Looks like we could be in for early June gap