Get a grip woman!

Suffolk_lass

Bees (again)
We were just leaving the house at 11.20 to go and walk our neighbour's cockapoo when DH said, "that's loud!" - and it was the unmistakable sound of bees swarming. So off he went with our dog, and I donned first my jacket, then after hostile investigation by a guard bee, I swapped to my full bee suit, only to discover the swarm had settled back on the hive it came from, and 20,000 bees were streaming back in. I shot a (far too long) video on my phone - I might try to upload it but would have to share it in my drive as it's too large to put here, or email. Anyway, they changed their minds and all went home again. After a while I opened the hive and it was literally boiling with bees so I gave them a super above the queen excluder so they have some more space. It might stop them swarming but not always. I would like to check what they are doing in terms of queen cells, as they may try to swarm out. That might be tomorrow as I am out this afternoon and evening.

While he was out, I did a quick check to see about the other splits we did and both the original hive and the nuc we split have newly emerged queen cells. I need to leave these to it for three weeks as they have virgin queens. The queens have to go on their mating flights (where they will be dive bombed by hundreds of drones, attempting to mate with them). Then, assuming this works and they successfully mate with several drones, and successfully make it back to their hive, there will be an interval before they begin their life's work as an egg-laying machine. 

I also checked that we hadn't cocked up the colony we took a frame from, and I don't think we did. The bees were bringing in nectar and the capped queen cell was in there. If that cell fails we will need to unite these, or introduce another queen or cell.

Money
In money news, I cannot understand why I have more in the bills account than normal. All this month's bills have gone as of this morning (paid window-cleaner today). 
In less favourable news, DH changed his mobile contract with Plusnet to £8 per month but they applied the COL uplift to £9.15 last month (while we were away) and it seems his motorbike club took preference over sorting this out as I can see it has done the same thing today. So a gentle prod is needed.

MissRikkiC

I live very close to a RAF base and assumed this morning that there was helicopters circling as I heard the loudest noise which I’d only assume could be that. As I looked up to see them, instead I saw a swarm of bees moving their way up my street. Pretty cool and I’d never have realised why until reading your dairy @Suffolk_lass

Suffolk_lass

Ooh lovely @MissRikkiC that makes me happy this fine morning.

Bees
We were still in our night clothes when I opened the back door and heard the unmistakable helicopter whirring sound of a swarm. Out we rushed, having thrown on clothes and suits, only to find them going back in (again). So we made sure and then came in to plan our approach to the naughty hive.

We needed to inspect the naughty hive that we had relocated to a remote farm track. They had all been locked in since the previous day, so understandably, they were not going to be too happy. We started with the two supers (supers are the frames that normally get put above the brood chamber, above a wire queen excluder with holes too small for your normal queen to get through. In our case, we had put queen excluders top and bottom of each set of chambers. The top super just had resting bees, so we left them covered with a crown board to keep them nice and warm while we inspected the rest. The other super has the queen as it has freshly laid eggs, larvae and pale yellow capped brood. This is now the bottom layer, on a clean new floor with a small entrance.
The next layer is what was the top brood box, as this has newly drawn comb throughout. That said, we took out the outside frames that are not drawn and replaced them with capped brood frames from the third chamber, that had been in the middle of the bottom box.

This third brood chamber is a bit of a doozy (sp?) as it has much capped honey - the trouble being that this capped honey has been capped for more than a year. So pretty much honey bound and the last place our bees will look to uncap, if they can, to use as stores. There was also wet nectar in this so we decided to put the queen excluder above the first brood box (with the queen super under that) then above the queen excluder, the honey-only super, then the crown board, and then the honey bound and wet frames in the brood box above that. This will encourage the bees to move the wet nectar down into the honey super so that we can remove it in a day or three

We will leave that as it is for a couple of days before bringing that back and removing any remaining honey to keep and feed back to some bees when they need it. We will add a second super for honey when we take that brood box away so they have plenty to do. DH was stung twice and me too, mine through my butler's cuffs like these but also the inside of my upper arm, through my suit. I popped a second anti-histamine when we got home as it was already itchy (the sting was in the suit). It is still itchy this morning so anti-histamine again (top tip for stings, btw).

We came home to have a bit of lunch, only for the next-door neighbour to knock and say a swarm was in his hedge. We shook this into a skep and left them for the afternoon, to make sure everyone was in there or at least on the sheet under it, then DH marched them into a nuc which we moved to the Hall grounds, swapping it for the failed swarm box we had put there ten days ago (they absconded). 

I then inspected the hive that had tried to swarm three time and knocked down (gouged out) all but one queen cell. I actually want that one too as I want to introduce calm queen

All of this too us until 8pm, so a quick supper - penne and broccoli, with the remnants of the chicken pie contents (picked chicken, sweetcorn and a tin of condensed soup) that had been too much for the size of pie dish, and I stirred together about half a deep tub of Philli cream cheese with some of the starchy pasta water and combined this with the pie remnants, and stirred it through the pasta and broccoli. Suffice to say we will be repeating that one. Then half a lemon jelly with sliced peaches that I had sorted that morning, and a dribble of cream (what a delightful treat, and the jelly is for my nails!!).

Then at dusk, we went back to the naughty hive in just jackets as I was washing our suits and cuffs to try and get rid of the alarm pheromone (which btw, smells like bananas - never go near bees with a banana!) and retrieved the kit we had left there for the day. With the exception of two or three bees on the outside, all the bees were back in the hive, with their queen and paid us no attention. As it should be!

Today we are supposed to be moving the vile hive, and their calmer neighbour, to the same farm track as the naughty hive. I want the two supercedure cells from one of our calm hives though, one for the swarmed hive in the garden and one for the nucleus split, which is struggling a bit. I want the queen to stay there and if she is failing, they have time to make a new queen. Of course, it is possible she is no longer there if I have left it too long. Anyway, they are here in the garden, so that is the first thing. Our suits are clean, dry (airing cupboard) hoods back in place, and ready to go.

Sorry, monster post but yesterday was all about bees, all over South Suffolk and North Essex so far as I can tell!

Karmacat

I've seen film online of massive swarms over whole villages, SL, and of course I was thinking of your work in taming them.  Hope you're okay - people were calling the police all over the place.  

Top tip about the bananas, by the way!  I'll spread that news among my family!

Merlin's_Beard

Those bees are sounding more vagrant than I ever imagined bees could be...I thought cats were bad for leaving home!

foxgloves

Agree about these bees! It's starting to sound a bit like herding cats!
F

beanielou

Your tea sounds lush.

Eek to the stings.

Suffolk_lass

World Bee Day!

Oh my, I did not even post yesterday, which was world bee day! I had just made up 4 kilos of granulated sugar into bee syrup and sat down about 9.00 when my friend, who was giving me a lift to the local Country Show (where I was due to help on the bee stall for the busy bit from 10.30-2.30pm) messaged me to say I can be there is 10 if you want. I fessed up and said 15 please, I'm still lolling in my nightie! I had been on the go since 6.30 though, but didn't go into that. She just laughed.

So I was there by 10 and wandered round to look, bought a bacon bap and tea for under £5 (bargain!) for my breakfast, and looked but did not buy for a bit. Located and used the toilets (most acceptable, at that time of day(!)) and I had a chat with the Suffolk Police dog handlers. One of the women in our village until a year or two back, used to home ex police sniffer dogs and we chatted about the types of substances they look for as my old colleagues used to be drugs, explosives and money - and if I was flying I could tell them and help with the training by carrying something for the dog to find - it was always entertaining to see other passengers' reactions, and the disappointment of the handlers if the dog missed my illicit package, and I had to go find them to give it back.

I spent a happy four hours selling honey and chatting to people about bees, what they do, forage on, neo-nics, swarms, honey, pollen and why we think local honey is good. One of the lads does cut outs ie when a colony has taken up residence, long term in a chimney, they can't just remove the bees. All trace of the comb and stores must go or a scout bee for another swarm with think "Ooh, des, res!" - a lot of people took his cards!

When it was time to go I was not able to get a response from DS who was giving me a lift home. I ended up in the cafe next to the butcher's where I had bought a french stick and a ready-made steak pie (wonderful). I had just finished my pot of tea and a fruit scone when DS's housemate was persuaded to try again to wake him and say the words "Your Mother asked me to wake you up!" That worked! Home the back way, avoiding the Show traffic. The pie was heated and half eaten wth mash, peas, carrots and buttered leeks. Followed by bottled plums and custard. Sublime.

I should just mention that wasn't all for us. My favourite Queen swarmed at home. DH dealt with it (about 3m up in a tall shrub) and they are now happily ensconced at the farm house, to replace the nasty bees we moved. These are nice, calm, quiet bees. 

I was in the shower, as hot as I dared, by ten, and in bed shortly afterwards.

Today has been similar. Up and out by 9.00 to release the swarm at their new location, so they could orientate, I gave them some syrup to help them draw comb. Then back home to inspect three colonies. Then a quick lunch of the cold pie before going off to the training apiary for the afternoon. 

I'm just cooking fish fingers, chips and peas before we deliver the swarm and collect two Virgin Queens to calm some of ours. Have a good evening all!

EssexHebridean

Sounds like the bee stuff is getting there SL! That's a good tip about bananas too!

We too have had jelly this weekend - lime in our case, with a tin of drained mandarin segments emptied in, and coincidentally also cream as I had some left from making curried parsnip soup!

themadvix

Wow SL, you sound like you've been a busy bee! (Sorry, I'll leave now!)