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.

Simple steps in seed saving...

Although I know it makes sense, I am still slow off the mark when it comes to seed saving. Having to construct a fly-proof cage, isolate a plant and then try to pollinate it myself without any biddies getting in to fluff it up, makes the whole process seem quite arduous. But I keep reading about it, thinking about it.

Last year we had a good crop of very tasty broad beans on the plot. The first batch were put in in October, but a brief snow fall in December burnt all the tops off and they didn't survive. So in Srping I replanted, in the only part of the plot with more than four inches of topsoil, and they grew, flowered and fruited well. I left about a dozen or so pods on the plants at the end of the season and then removed them after a couple of weeks. I now know I should have taken up the plants and hung them to dry before removing the pods, but no matter.

In the early part of the year, around half of the seeds I saved were put into large yoghurt pots, two to a pot. They were left outside and given no real looking after. After a month or so they started to show and gradually two plants showed from each pot. I had 100% success with the first batch.

About two weeks ago they were planted out on the plot. Good roots, nice tips, they should do well and produce enough beans for us and for some more seed. The other half of the seeds are destined to go out on the Rainford plot in better soil. The variety is a dwarf one, and last year only grew eighteen inches high.

I'm really pleased with the success of the germination and progress so far. Plus I feel like seed saving could actually be easier than I thought. While I have saved about a fiver, it's the satisfaction of knowing I grew them, I harvested them, and I kept the seed in good condition until this year. I saved some seeds from the runner beans too. A baker's dozen, which have also gone in yoghurt pots, one to a pot this time. I can see the top of the soil thrusting upwards but so far it's impossible to tell how many will germinate and grow.