July: Meanwhile back on the allotment

So its been four weeks since we put the swarm on the allotment...time to go and have a really good look at how well that hive is getting on...

We would really have liked to see some, even just a little bit, of honey coming into the supers by now...

But there wasn't a drop to be found...which is quite frustrating as the nearby hives have honey ready to harvest...

And really ...for 6pm on a sunny day ...there are not a lot of bees in this hive...

and this might be the reason why...there is simply no worker brood...

All those bubbly looking sealed cells are drone brood and a hive full of boys won't last long....looking at Brunehild ( what other name could we give a queen living in a Beehaus?) you wouldn't really think anything was wrong with her, she certainly runs fast enough...

But after some fairly intense debate and VERY close inspection...we've decided that she is a drone layer...

Which rather begs the question......how have all these bees managed to make a queen cell?

And if there is a viable queen in there...is there enough time left this summer for her to turn this colony round?

July: Apiary open day

The sign went up....

The honey extracted and bottled....literally the night before...

The displays went up...

 

 

The bees were very well behaved...

The bee friendly plant stall opened and did a swift trade...

Would the people of Ewell come and see us?  Yes they certainly did and helped us raise nearly £200 to help us keep the teaching apiary going..

Thank you people of Ewell

July: Pollen identification night

What better way is there to spend a Tuesday evening than by picking some flowers straight after work and heading on down to the apiary?  These lovely local examples weren't for feeding the bees though...

This is the serious business of examining pollen grains...

We didn't drink that much tea before getting on with making up the slides...

and, thanks to some nifty extra bits on the microscope we pretty soon all had some interesting pollen grains to view...

Fox Glove

Red hot poker

Alstromeria

And some even more fascinating combinations "borrowed" from pollen baskets on bees' legs...

Definitely an interesting way to spend a Tuesday evening...