Get a grip woman!

LadyGnome

Beekeeping is supposed to be a relaxing hobby too.  Sounds like you have a good strategy and the weather should be better.  Our fall back solutions are either to reunite the hives for now and split again later or put a frame of BIAS in from the new hive that has the old queen.  I don't want to weaken the new hive too much so I would only take a frame if they are building up well.

Suffolk_lass

Friday I was in the greenhouse, potting things on when my phone went. It was my beekeeping mentor asking if we could collect a swarm in a hedge! It was in the next village and 11-12ft up above a wall. We managed but it was not straightforward as the only hive immediately available was a travelling nucleus box with the recessed lid and nowhere to feed. In trying to transfer them DH thinks we lost the queen. We will check again today. They are from a feral colony in someone's roof. In the meantime, someone was removing queen cells from their hive and one hatched, so they popped her in a box and gave her to us on Sunday. She is in a cage with our cast swarm. We need to check on her today. Hopefully she is OK.

Sorry, all bees - we had to raid the emergency pot on Friday to top up the running costs account that was going to show overdrawn by close of business, so all of May's Tilly Tidies went there, rounded down to £200

Busy_Mee

Just catching up on all the bee excitement, I find it all fascinating 
 Hooray for the Tilly Tidy pot coming to the rescue, my OH thinks I am slightly mad tillytidying every day, but it soon mounts up. 

rtandon27

👋 Hello SL - love a good bee story!

I miss our work bees, we lost one of our two queens during the past year & by the time anyone realized, that hive had emptied out  - hopefully the beekeeper who helps us out has managed to salvage the other hive - will find out once our beekeeping club resumes!

LadyGnome

Good luck with the swarm. Our split was queenless. We put a frame of BIAS in and they are making queen cells so I’ve ordered a mated queen to speed things up. I will take the frame with QC out when we put the new queen in and create a backup mini nucleus colony just in case.  We were close to running out of time. They are so much happier now they can raise a queen - you really can hear the difference.

SandyShores

Not quite the same I know, but we had a solitary masonry bee buzzing around inside a little hole on our plastic hosepipe cover yesterday.  I looked it up and it seems she has put a cocoon inside as its now all sealed up with mud.  We're going to have to be careful using the hose all summer now so we don't disturb it.  We store the hose inside the garage each winter, so will need to remember to get it out in Spring for the hatchling.  I'm now searching for nesting tubes to encourage more visitors.  

Suffolk_lass

Well the new virgin queen was being ignored (that is a good thing) so we liberated her from the cage, and also swapped a frame of undrawn comb with a drawn one so that both colonies have plenty of space. We did look in the primary swarm hive but could not see the queen (or any eggs). After liaison with the neighbours who are selling, their buyers are due at 10.30 today so we will delay looking at the hives until after that in case we make them cross. I'm really hoping for the contact to come through re the location more than 3 miles away that they will be moved to.

In money news my pension uplift is less per month than the increase in Council Tax and our electricity deal runs out at the end of this month. Nothing cheaper is available so we will be worse off after the end of the month.

Suffolk_lass

Quick check of email and I have won £25 on PB (reinvested; every bit helps!)

Karmacat

Hurray!  Good news on the PB win!

Can I check a bee sighting with you, SL?  I saw *something* yesterday zooming about our eaves, on it's own, really looking like it was checking for somewhere to nest or something.  It was absolutely huge - twice the size of an ordinary big bumblebee, and a lot noisier too.  Never seen anything like it, and I've had lots of masonry bees before.  I was wondering if it was an incomer?

Suffolk_lass

Hi @Karmacat - I can't really be sure (esp without a picture) but there are a number of varieties of bumble bee in the UK. The most common here seem to be garden and buff-tailed but they are quite small. Take a look at this link from the bumblebee conservation trust and see what you think but beware - there is a whole level of nerd-dom you will be entering if you do!!