Fun thing: we had a visitor today. They saw the Warre hives out the back window
and asked if they were houses for chickens...! What an intriguing idea.
Also: a man with an Eastern European accent saw me at my hives and said his
grandfather, who kept bees, told him the smell of alcohol makes bees angry.
I've not heard that before but I'm prepared to believe it.
Regarding the meeting at Zuzana's:
I'm very impressed by the pre-planning here. Also the photos are very useful.
I did essentially the same thing on my TBHs on Monday, seizing a few hours of
good weather to make room for expanding the brood nest, and some interesting
things came up.
Firstly, the size and amount of comb! These are long established TBHs which
have built up their resources over several years; one such resource is comb. I
attach a few photos which give a good idea of how massive these combs are
compared to Zuzana's photos - though as her colony has survived and is flying
strongly now [see her "history of this colony" notes], it should expand
strongly from an established core and rival mine this year. A side effect of
big combs extending to within a bee space of the walls is: that the bees had
time to build brace comb between the edges of the comb and the hive walls, so I
had to carefully cut through these bits of comb. Which took a while. Whereas
Zuzana's combs are not yet extended to the hive walls.
Another thing that slowed me down was several combs were skewed across 2 bars
so some delicacy was needed. I've been gradually correcting this over the last
couple of years. More on how to do this at the meeting.
I found there were 11 (in one hive) and 12 bars (in the other) with at least
some brood. That's quite a lot of brood comb already. I moved the first 2 or 3
to place new bars between them - whereas with Zuzana's hive we don't intend
going into the nest at all. I noticed there were no drone brood yet, so these
rural hives are behind Will's central Oxford ones.
In one hive I found a great example of "the start / end of a brood nest". One
comb had lots of pollen at one side. Right, I thought, that's often a sign of
brood just beyond it. Indeed on the other side of the same comb the brood
began. That's 2 of the attached photos - opposite sides of the same comb. Also
of interest are the tunnels the bees have formed through the comb (short cuts
particularly useful for avoiding cold walls in winter to access honey stores)
and the classic partial arcs of pollen and honey above the brood.
Like Zuzana I see no point in looking for a queen, the hive is obviously
queen-right from its organised behaviour and pollen gathering. I happened to
see larvae (healthy "pearly curlies") which confirm she was laying recently.
The other photo shows how I laid out my tools on a sheet before starting.
That's because I tend to lose items in grass!
I have since sterilised my gloves and tools (metal ones with a blowtorch) in
preparation for Saturday's fun & games.
One last thing: if your hive has windows you can tell where the brood nest is
because those are the combs covered with (nurse) bees. Even before opening
these hives I knew the nests were about 11 bars deep just from a glance through
the window. You can zoom through moving honeycomb, working fast to minimise
heat loss, with little hassle from the bees but the time to go slow and
carefully is once you hit the brood area.
Paul
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On 01/04/2019 12:33, Zuzana Meryova wrote:
Hi all,
Quick History of Bees in my TBH:
23/6/18 - swarm collected from Paul & hived in TBH with 6 empty bars
7 days later - 3 more bars added
15 days later - another 3 more bars added (so, 12 bars in total; THIS is a
sign of inexperienced me :D )
9/8/18 - hive opened for the 4th time (see pictures in emails below), bees
are using 8 bars
Mid Sep - TBH protected with pallets & isolation
warm Oct days - bees busy
Nov, Dec, Jan - minimal or no activity
mid Feb - active bees
March - very active
*no feeding, no treating, no looking for the queen, no brood nest opening,
no honey taking, just simply adding bars to the end of the nest (managed
without bees flying out), no smoker needed, hive entrance open fully (it
was half open during winter - might find mouse in?)
Action Plan for the 6th April
Prevent "honey bounding", and
therefore encourage colony's growth
How:
move the bars (expecting one or two bars) of honey out of the way
IMPORTANT:
I DO NOT want to open the BROOD NEST, as I like to make sure the
temperature in a developing bee's cell stays constant (super important for
the colony health & strength) also I don't want to damage the nest. So
sorry everyone, we WILL NOT be looking for the queen or her laying pattern,
etc.
We WILL NOT be doing SWARM CONTROL either.
When the colony decides to swarm that is the right time to do so. I know
this is the most natural way for bees and therefore i will not make an
effort to go against their decision. I am hoping to try to catch them once
they are out & offer them new hive (despite their knowing where they are
trying to get to -they have chosen their new home before they swarmed
already TRUE OR NOT????)
"QUEEN NEEDS TO COME INTO THE LIGHT ONCE EACH YEAR TO RENEW HER FERTILITY.
Her brief annual flight reconnects her with the sun. The sun's light on her
body stimulates her reproductive system - a symbolic remembering of her
mating flight - and renews the fecundity, the life force, within her. The
entire mature community participates and is integral to this renewal" J.
Freeman "The natural life cycle of a Queen is 8 years" S. A. L. Taylor
HOW LONG TO KEEP THE HIVE OPEN - hopefully not too long, UNDER 5 min would
be great
Fingers cross the weather will be great. Im very sorry if I sound rude, my
best interest goes to honey bees and their well being.
I look forward to meeting everyone,
warm wishes, Zuzi
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