Doing the splits...

Over the winter I lost a colony of bees. Talking to other beekeepers, reading other blogs, browsing articles, has led me to the conclusion that the colony died of starvation, not helped by being affected by nosema last autumn and being a small cluster, probably unable to keep themselves warm enough to move to available stores during the last really cold snap. Since then I have been thinking about splitting the one remaining hive and how best to do it.


Yesterday seemed an ideal opportunity. A week previously I had knocked down a queen cell and knew something had to be done, so with a decent bit if weather (sunny, a bit cloudy, cool breeze) I decided to take the chance. Equipment was readied, every grain of sugar in the house was used to make syrup, hive parts were checked for cleanliness and spiders.

I did the normal inspection of the first hive. Removed the, now empty, feeder and checked stores. There still isn't a massive amount in there, but they have enough and this cool weather surely has to end soon. In the brood boxes, as the hive is on double brood, all was well except for a couple of queen cells. Two frames of brood were removed into the new box, along with a couple of extra frames of bees, then began the hunt for the queen. Three times through the bottom box and I gave up. Surely she can't be in the upper? But three frames in, there she was. Into the 'queen cage' (an old hair roller) and transferred to the new brood box. She scuttled off between the frames and I moved the hive onto its stand. Added some syrup to the feeder, put the crownboard and roof on, strapped it up.  

Now I have to be patient. Will the queen be happy in her new home? Will there be enough bees to cluster successfully? Will she swarm? Or go back to the original hive? Will the bees in the original hive rear a successful queen? Are there enough drones? It will be a long week I think, and I am already itching to go and have a look, but I know that disturbing them now will probably do more harm than good.

Moving house, part two...

After a three week break due to crap weather, I finally got everything together to go and check the bees. A slight panic at first as there was nothing flying, but a quick look under the crown board told me all was well. They seem to have settled into their new home quite well and look like they are building up nicely.

I also got time to put up a second hive stand, which you can see in the background, covered in the wood I used to shore up and rebuild the killer steps. They're not brilliant, but they're a lot better now. The second stand will take a Commercial brood body, something I am trying out to see if it gives the bees a bit more room. Slightly against my better judgement, and partly to make some space in the yard / shed, I have added a second brood box to this hive and will try on double brood for this season. I don't have enough equipment to have more hives because, quite simply, I don't have enough space to store spare equipment for more hives. 

Once the weather properly warms up, hopefully in May, I will split this hive to go back to two colonies. The method I will use is a new one, but comes recommended from a bee farmer. Take the queen of the original colony on a frame of brood and move her to a new hive along with some bees. The flying bees go back to the original hive (and then raise a new queen) and the non-flying bees stay where they are. The queen thinks she's swarmed, and I double my colonies. Sounds simple, so we'll see.

Moving house, part one...

I thought I might have had the plot to myself last week when I popped up to turn the ground ready for the potatoes, but the place was packed. There'd also been a good deal of activity since my last visit, as I found out when I went through the gate. What was once good thick turf has been reduced to a slippery slope.

It got worse further in, with the path to the plot more of the same, up to the spring where we get our water. There, some bright spark had had the idea of moving the basin where the water collects, with the result we now have a pool where the old pool was, and a swamp because the new plastic sump doesn't drain the water away properly.

When I got to the bee plot, I was horrified to find this mess:

Walking across from the path was hard work and I can only begin to imagine how much harder it would be with a full super. You can't even wheel a barrow it's that uneven. When I queried who and why, and pointed out that was my half plot for the bees I was given some vague bullshit that just proved once again that the people who have plots on that site have no clue how gardening works, and if brains were manure, there'd be enough to fertilise only a very small gro-bag.

So my hand was forced, so to speak. I don't want the bees on this site any longer and decided to move them straight away. So with a friend, Andrew's, help the remaining hive (the one on the left in the photo) was lifted from its home of over three years, carried stumblingly across the ground, placed gently in the car and driven to a new location.

The distance from site to site was well over the regulation three miles and they should do well there, secluded and in the midst of masses of balsam. I returned to the plot site on the Monday and removed the rest of the windbreak netting and the remaining hive and will re-queen as soon as possible to get back to two colonies.

All this was done in the rain so thankfully there were no flying bees, and I have yet to inspect them after their move, but it all went smoothly, albeit a couple of skids on the path of the skimmed allotments and a near-miss blunder at the top of the potentially lethal steps, below.

The photo is blurred because I was still shaking after slipping on the second step, with Andrew skidding at the top. Thankfully those orange straps keep everything nicely tight and together. So one colony successfully moved, no stings, no mishaps. Thank goodness!

Rest in bees...

Apologies for the awful pun, but it seemed appropriate. On Saturday, with the mild weather continuing, I decided to go and check all was well with the bees. The first colony, the more tetchy of the two, was filling the super and buzzing quite a bit. Their mood wasn't help by my clumsy removal of the super. I just couldn't get it off and ended up tipping one side and prising off the frames underneath. I knew it would be stuck but didn't think it would be so bad. It wasn't helped by the extra comb the bees had built down into the, now empty, frame feeder. At least they have taken all the Fumidil B and so should be nosema-free now. One thing I do need to do is widen the slats in the floor for the varroa tray. Part of the reason I don't effectively manage the varroa is because it's a struggle to get the sliders in and out. Must remedy that this season, it's a part of my beekeeping I know is lacking...

So, after a bit of lumping about (and only one minor sting!) I moved onto the second hive. Oh dear. No sign of anything when I took off the lid. A small cluster of maybe 20-30 bees were stuck at the top of one frame and there were odd ones and twos of bees across some of the other frames. There were stores, at least four frames-worth, but from the position of some bees (head down, right down into the cell, just the business end sticking out) I must suspect starvation. I can't understand it, they were a good-sized cluster not two weeks back, with plenty of stores and a frame feeder full of syrup. Needless to say they hadn't taken much from the feeder. So for the first time since I started keeping bees, I have lost a colony. Gutted. I brushed off the frames and closed up the hive and came home to think about my next move. I hope to move both hives in the next few weeks and then, once settled, will attempt to re-queen from the first hive. I like having two colonies, it gives a way of comparing how each is doing so I will make sure I expand again as soon as possible.

On a slightly different note, I got my monthly newsletter from my association, Manchester beekeepers. The results of the honey show were in. Seven of the classes were won by the local bee inspector. Is it just sour grapes, thinking a professional beekeeper has an unfair advantage?

Spring has sprung...

... the grass is ris,
I wonder where,
the birdies is.

There are plenty of birds around, they have been flexing their song muscles for several weeks. I stood at the back door last night and, mixed in among the screams of children, the revving of over-tuned cars and the distant sirens, listened to a blackbird filling the air with his liquid song. It is a sound I always get pleasure from, particularly in the urban mess that is Farnworth.

It's not just the birds gearing up for spring. Yesterday, when I got to the farm there were three new additions. Mum Zina was looking very pleased with herself, despite needing a hand to get the first kid, a breech presentation, out. These were born on Friday and are already jumping about, itching to get in and play with the other goats.

More are due this weekend, so I am hoping it happens near enough to Sunday for me to be present.

With the weather so bright and sunny, I also decided to have a quick look in the hives. Both colonies are doing well, although one has used up almost all of its winter stores. I took two of their empty frames out and swapped them for two full ones from the other hive but will need to pop back this week and give them some sugar syrup to keep them going. If the weather is good, they might not need it, but better to be safe than sorry. I have been quite good so far at keeping them going through the winter and I would hate a basic mistake like not feeding them interrupt my success.

Although the sun was out, it must have been warmer on my head than in the air, as you can see.

Learning the hard way...

I've been keeping bees for over two years now and am part-way through my second full season. I do enjoy working my way through the hive, trying to guess what they're going to do next, trying (and usually failing) to see the queen, checking for stores brood and varroa.

I get more confident with every hive inspection and I find I am now thinking ahead more to try and ensure I am not caught out when I get to the hive as it is a half hour drive away from the house and forgetting a vital piece of equipment is a real pain and means a second journey.

Although i am far from being an expert, I do know a little and a colleague from work, who got his first colony last year asked me to go along and check his bees over as he was worried after the long winter. So one Sunday we went up and had a look. I should've been alerted by the pitch of the buzzing that came from the hive but I assumed they were calm bees like my own. They aren't.

We only got part-way through the brood before I decided they were too agitated to carry on, although by then we had seen the queen and made sure she was laying. We put the hive back together and I had moved away and taken off my veil when I wandered back over to help put the woodpecker guard on. That's when I got stung twice on the side of my head. Not content with that, they also stung Agnieszka on the leg and, as we left, I saw several come straight out of the hive to try again.

So for three or four days I've been walking lop-sided and staring out of one eye like some kind of cyclops. We laughed about it at the end but I'm not sure we'll be rushing back to have a second look; if we do, I won't be taking the veil off!

Doing the splits in a morning...

So far this year the hive hasn’t presented any problems but over the last few weeks the bees have been building queen cells and, after finding a couple of them capped, I started to get very nervous that I would lose them if they swarmed. At my weekly inspection last Monday I found a very nice queen cell and decided to split the hive to stop them swarming and to increase my potential honey harvest.

So on Tuesday morning I went to the site before work and did the best I could to perform an artificial swarm. This involves removing the queen and then replacing the brood box with a completely new one. The old box is moved a few feet away and any flying bees return to the new box on the old site, with the old queen. The box is bare so they think they’ve swarmed. The second hive contains the queen cell and the non-flying bees and will be left for three weeks in the hope the new queen will mate and start laying.

Everything seemed to go smoothly but, after reporting back to a more experienced bee-keeper I realised the queen excluder was above the new brood box and not underneath (to stop the queen trying to make a run for it). I had to go back and change it all round later that day. Now all I have to do is wait but the weather is poor and it may mean the queen doesn’t mate properly. Whatever happens, it’s a new learning curve and a chance to try to get better at techniques to increase the size of my apiary.