what a yummy sticky mess

We really have been blessed with some lovely weather lately. It was such a pleasant morning I thought I had better check the progress of the merger today. I should have done it on Sunday but the local children were playing football at the club next to the allotment (it is probably a good idea to avoid having lots of smoke an flying bees around to alarm mummy while little Jack and Chardonnay are playing sport). So today I checked the new frames in the busy merged colony and they have started to build plenty of honey comb so I could move the queen to the new brood box. I was an relativity simple procedure once you have found the queen she is likely to be in the main brood box and she should be easy to spot because she has a blue spot on her thorax (A blue spot signifies she was born in 2010) as queens usually live no longer than 5 years so a 5 year colour cycle exists, White is years ending in 1 or 6 Yellow is 2 or 7,Red is 3 or 8, Green is 4 or 9, and Blue 5 or 0. So once she was found she was moved to the new chamber and the old brood box has a queen excluder (the queen is much bigger than a worker so an excluder allows the workers through but the queen is trapped) and a hive entrance placed on top then the new box with the queen on top of that so all of the old box can hatch the brood already in place (and there is lots of it) over the next 3 weeks. The exciting part of this event is that I have extracted about 5KG of honey this afternoon, a very fun sticky job.

A Budget Day Merger

Well the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced his budget for growth a nondescript event if I must say so myself, 50p off a tank of diesel is no great shakes.

So I decided to conduct a merger, well the merging of two bee colonies at Hatton Road.

Hatton Road is a very noisy site, as it is located next to Heathrow Airport. The Hive is 775.5 meters from the end of the South Runway, so it is a great spot for plane spotting. Bees don't have ears so it doesn't worry them.

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Well I had 2 Colonies there but (as in my previous post) sadly one colony didn't come through the winter with a surviving Queen (they checked out to be disease free), I confirmed this in another inspection before the merger. So the best thing to do as it is too early to get another Queen is to merge the colonies together. The main method if you have the time (which we have) is to separate the colonies with a sheet of newspaper you take the roof and crown board off the first colony which does have a queen and lay newspaper over the top of the hive and slit the paper in a few places, the old colony goes on top, and the roof and crown board on top of that. The bees eat their way through the paper over the next day or so, slowly becoming accustomed to each other.

This is a pleasant adventure, compared to the chaos method alternative where you have a sloping board running into the hive that you are keeping, you then need to isolate the queen ensuring she is safely in the home hive, while you shake all the bees from both hives on to the board and amid the chaos they all run into the hive with out too much fighting. This is not for the faint hearted  (only to be done if the area is generally public free) but a spectacular sight as it happens very quickly (like a film speeded up).

Spring has sprung for real this time (Warning grusome photo alert)

Oh the joys of seeing sunshine and feeling its gentle warmth against your skin. Over the weekend it was the first real bee-keeping weather and at last a chance to have a good look inside the hives. Both of the hives that were moved on St Patrick's Day were both in fine form with plenty of brood plenty of bees and plenty of food. The colony that over wintered at Snakey lane was also in fine form. The sad news is that the largest colony that overwintered at Hatton Road seem to be in bad shape and seems to not have a laying queen (although I am not convinced there is no queen) there is no brood in any stage but plenty of food still quite a few bees. I will leave it for further inspection next weekend (weather permitting) In the meantime I have taken a sample of bees for analysis so I can look at merging the remaining bees to assist the more successful colony if they don't look like being able to continue. 

There are 2 diseases that  that I have checked for Nosema  which infects the gut of the bee caused by a protozoa (a unicellular parasite from the fungi family) it requires a sample of bees (killed by freezing) mashed into a paste with a little distilled water and sampled under the microscope, I am pleased to say there was none to be found ( this hive was checked last September and was positive  and treated with Fumadil) this is a picture from that September inspection

The other problem is Acarine which is a extremely tiny mite that infests the trachea of the bee you will be interested to note that a bee does not breath through its mouth but a series of spiracles on the side of its body the mite lays her eggs in these airways, seriously affecting the bees breathing, the hatched mites climb out and transfer to other bees via the hair.

The only way of checking for this is to decapitate the dead bee and check the trachea if it creamy coloured it is fine if is marked and dark in places you have a problem ( You need to check a few bees and it is a fiddly job)

Here is a photo of one of the dissections

Well I feel we are all clear and if they are to be merged It will be OK . I will keep you posted

St Patricks Day.... a day to move the bees

I closed the Uxbridge Apiary today the two hives have been relocated at Hatton Rd and Snakey Lane. How does that happen I hear you cry. It started yesterday when I Closed the Hives, I waited until it was a little chilly ( which is standard at the moment) and I placed a block on their entrance ( I designed a one-way system that allowed any returning bees in but the bees inside could not get out.) I strapped the hive with a ratchet strap and I left it over night. This morning I loaded my sack trolley and went to the hives and sealed up the entrances completely with Duct Tape and sealed the edge of the floor to stop any side ways shift. Once they were ready I wheeled them down to the car ( Thank you Citroen your Picasso range is perfect 2 hives fit perfectly with out moving the seats)off down the road with 2 colonies of bees in the back.

I am happy to report that both colonies are securely in place in their new site. They will have to learn a whole new area to forage the Snakey Lane bees will be happy to find a Garden Centre next door. Now it is time to plan the comb changes for all the hives( it is an expensive business)

Decline of honey bees now a global phenomenon, says United Nations

Headline from The Independent 

well the alarm bell are ringing high up the chain at last ... well the alternative is hand pollination and I have discussed that in previous posts.

I must say that here in the UK I haven't seen any reports of Colony Loss as seen in The USA and other countries. I personally believe that it is the result of intensive bee keeping and the transporting of huge quantities of bees from one area to another for very short pollination periods of about 3 weeks then packing them up and transporting them 1000s of miles to do the next crop. This is a disruptive process and the bees miss out on variety of nectar and pollen in the process. This is a very profitable business to a bee farmer who will receive about $200 a colony for his effort especially as they turn up with 1000 hives for 3 weeks and they will complete a few of these in a season. 

Bee keeping is worth a lot of money to agriculture and  the economy. 

But there is something more than just profit in bee keeping ( I know as I have a huge cost and not one ounce of profit) there is a lot more love needed.

Is it time to have a re-think? I really think so!

spring has sprung.......for the moment

the bulletin boards are buzzing with bee talk......... spring has sprung... for the moment

 I can all change with the wind. Since my last blog I can announce that my bees are buzzing and the Uxbridge bees were bringing in plenty of pollen ( I think they have re-discovered the local garden centre but there are plenty of local plantings of early blooms and crocus in the parks which is a real plus). The Hatton Road  bees have found some nice early pollen and the daffodils are all bobbing in the breeze and I am sure there is early blossom in the old orchards. I am sure that the bees in Snakey lane will be all visiting the garden centre next door. It is still a time of trepidation as they may be bringing in pollen but a lot of early flowers are not great producers of nectar and bee-keepers will be lifting their hives to judge the amount of food remaining in the hive. I will towards the end of this week do exactly that and I will give them some light syrup to help things along if they need it. It would be lovely to get a really nice day where I feel confident that I could open the hive and have a look.
So if you are thinking about a garden do the bees a favour and include some early blooms to help them on their way

The picture is from Simon Croson a fellow bee-keeper from Lincolnshire 

who has some wonderful photos on his website

http://www.sicroson.com