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...

May: Basic assessment day

We really couldn't have been more prepared for our seven eager "beginners" to be undertaking theri basic assessment.  The tea and biscuits were well stocked ( thanks Liz), the single brood hives were selected and we'd even cleaned out the smokers...

In fact there were almost too many to choose from...

But of course the one thing we couldn't control was the lovely English weather... would we get all the assessment completed before the threatened thunder storms arrived from the continent?  The morning sessions got off to a great start with a gentle puff of smoke...

The first frames were examined in great detail...

There were drips and drops of rain at lunchtime but undeterred we carried on...

So now its all over.  It didn't actually rain or thunder ( phew!) so all of the assessments were completed..

So now we just have to wait with baited breath for the results.  What a good job bee keepers are well practised at being patient!

May: Bee keeping experiment

Did you know that in a quiet corner of an Epsom allotment there is a small experiment in bee keeping under way?

We've been given a Beehaus style bee hive and its fair to say we haven't seen anything quite like it before...

After a bit of head scratching we decided there was nothing else for it  - we simply had to put some bees in it and see how they got on...

First to load the brood area with some deep frames...

Then gently encouraging a swarm out of its box...

The plastic queen excluder confused us for a short time, which way round do you think it should go?

 




At least the first couple of workers venturing up the foundation poked their heads through it happily enough...

We loaded the supers with a few frames of stores...

 




and then popped the lid back on.  The bees seem to be quite happy using the front door....despite the name plate...

2013: Apiary in May

The weather forecasters have been busy telling us that spring is running approximately 20 days behind schedule...oh boy ... do we wish they'd also told the bees to run 20 days later than normal too!

The bees in most of our colonies have been busy....

In face we may have more developing queen cells than we know what to do with....so it was great timing that we had enjoyed two club night presentations on swarm control in preparation for performing an artificial swarm.

it feels like we've had more than our fair share of cold and wet Saturday classes but we have managed to use every sunny moment to get out and inspect the hives thoroughly...

And with so much going on in the hives we've been making copious hive notes...

 

So its not just the bees that are busy in May!