July: Open day

 The displays were made....

The exhibits laid out...

The beeswax and the wild flower meadow seeds were ready...

 

Some rather tetchy bees were persuaded into the observation hive...

The honey tasting table was loaded...

 

The bee friendly plant stall did brisk business...

 

We had all sorts of people come to see us...

 

Including the Mayor of Epsom...

And if we say so ourselves a rather good day (if sweltering hot!) was had by all.

Same time, same place next year?

June: Dodging downpours....

It all started off looking promising enough....

There was even a glimpse of sunshine between the clouds...

We got on with the tidying up ...ready for our open day on 12th July....

 

But then the down pour came...

So we retreated inside to the workshop and in that ever -optimistic manner of bee keepers the world over made up some more frames for supers.  Five men and four hammers...it was an object lesson in coordinated team work!!

We got there in the end....

Now we can relax in the doorway, dream of sunny days and nectar flows ahead an watch the raindrops splash!!

May: Peace before the practical

Summer has definitely arrived in the apiary....

There are a few moments of peace ....

...before a burst of activity...

We did teach our beginners to light smokers properly and not simply set fire to them!

 

Smokers lit!  Let the inspections commence....

This week seems to have been a week of interesting wax building...

This on the inside of a crown board ...

Isn't it gorgeous....

This on the brood chamber side of a dummy board...

A little bit of teamwork and our inspections were very nearly done....

 

and peace can return to the apiary...

April: Tidying up and breathing in the blossom....

What a lovely spring morning!

But there is no time for lollygagging around admiring the blossom....

That mound won't trim itself you know...

and the shed roof definitely needs a thorough inspection....

And look, when you set your mind to it you can clear a complete path!

..and dig out a tonne of weeds....

And you can hoover so fast that the photo blurs....

And if you've worked hard enough, you never know the sun might just pop out from behind a cloud and reward your efforts with a glorious view of blossom trees in the apiary...

Duck race 2014

Not the most obvious entry for a blog entry for an association of bee keepers....and you may think this looks like an ordinary plastic duck....the sort of thing a child (or a bee keeper!) might play with in the bath.  But it wont look like a duck for very much longer....

A dab of mascara here...

A stripe here....

A wing here...

An evening to dry properly and our new queen duck is taking shape...

A second set of wings and she is all set for the race....

Safely delivered to the start line, she obviously took to heart that she should behave like a bee and tried to get off to a flying start (there she is just hanging around in the starters net)

That starters net proved to be a serious handicap as she promptly capsized...

C33 was last seen scuba diving towards the finish line...

But none of that matters really. A jolly good day out was had by all who attended and much needed funds were raised for Casey Childrens' ward at Epsom hospital, and other local charities...

For more photos of a great fun day out please follow these links:

ECRA duck race 2014

Duck race 2014

April 2014: Beginners practicals

Our beginners classes have taken full advantage of the warm start to April.teaching has progressed a pace...

Frames have been very closely inspected and unwanted brace comb, however attractive, has been spring cleaned out of the hives...

Talking of spring cleaning, we decided to take some samples of flying bees to test for nosema, jam jars and old honey jars were pressed into service to capture 30 flying bees...

Abdomens were snipped away from bodies...

And ground up into bee gut soup...

A drop from each sample was dripped onto a slide and examined under the microscope for tell tale "rice grain" nosema spores...

And the good news is that all the hives we tested had only the tiniest indication of Nosema.