Hi Ian,
Sorry to hear that you're winding down your beekeeping. If you're at all
interested in keeping your hand in on a minimal basis (e.g. one hive, and a
nuc when required) I have a friend at the top of Englishcombe Lane (the
Rush Hill end) who is interested in having bees in his garden. He can't do
inspections himself (sting allergy) but the garden is pretty large, so if
someone (e.g. you) is happy to manage the hive, the chances of him getting
stung is minimal. Also, he has a number of trees so there is a reasonable
chance that, if the bees swarm, they might settle in his garden and be
collectable.
He doesn't need an answer straight away, but if this is an option that
might interest you, I'm happy to put you in touch with him.
Cheers,
Andy.
On Wed, 20 May 2020 at 10:50, Ian Gilchrist <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi Andy and thanks for sharing this.
I have in the past few weeks suffered an absolute epidemic of swarms (~6
in the last 18 days or so). Three of these did not stick around long enough
for me to do anything, but three had gathered in neighbour's garden and had
to be dealt with.
The outcome is that I have decided to wind down my bee-keeping operations,
having become convinced that bees and neighbours (especially with small
children) don't mix. There is the added factor that from September I will
be going back to university for 2 years and will consequently be a very
unreliable bee-keeper.
The winding down process started today with Pete Davis of the club taking
away my two nucs with healthy colonies, to be given to other people in the
club. I will keep going with the 2 main hives until the end of this season,
and will hope to get some honey! One of these hives I have offered to give
to my niece in Dorset, but the other one is basically on offer to a 'good
home' if one can be found. The two hives are both National 14x12 from
Thornes made of redwood and well-preserved being only about 3-4 years old.
Both have 2 supers of the same provenance.
So if you might be interested in one (possibly both, depending on my
niece) of these hives let me know.
Ian
Ian Gilchrist
24 Horseshoe Walk
Bath BA2 6DF
T: 01225-334775
M: 07772-433367
E: iangilchrist52@xxxxxxxxxxx
My links:
Ceilidh band 'Pipley': http://www.pipley.uk
Ceilidh band 'Pilgarlic': http://pilgarlic.uk/
Bath City Jubilee Waits: http://www.bathcityjubileewaits.org.uk
My Iran video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=OfJjHCinSmI&feature=youtu.be
On Saturday, 16 May 2020, 22:50:22 BST, Beechen Bees <
noreply+feedproxy@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Beechen Bees: More Swarms!
------------------------------
More Swarms!
Posted: 16 May 2020 11:25 AM PDT
In my last update on Sunday 3rd May, I'd finally managed to collect the
swarm from neighbour Mark's garden. The bees were safely housed in a
nucleus, and everything was back to normal. Or so I thought.
The next day (Monday 4th) they swarmed again. I don't know why, but for
some reason the bees abandoned the nucleus and headed off to another
neighbour's garden (Julia's, this time). So, off I went again, with a
bucket, loppers and the now-empty nuc for round 2. This time, they were
about 8ft up in a crab-apple tree. At least they were easy to reach this
time. Unfortunately, they were clustered around a thick branch, just at
the point where it divided. There was nothing else for it - Julia lent me
a saw and I started hacking away. Eventually, the swarm - and accompanying
branch - was free:
The only way to be sure I had all the bees was to put the piece of branch
- with swarm still attached - into the nucleus, and then carry it back to
the apiary. Eventually they settled down, and I'm relieved to report they
didn't swarm again.
The next incident was on the bank holiday, last Friday. I'd checked
Dorothy's colony, in the brown nucleus, 6 days previously - and all seemed
fine. Unfortunately, I must have missed a queen cell, so off they went.
This time, they decided to set up home in my neighbour Darren's chimney.
There's no way I can collect them from there, so I suppose they will just
set up home and have a happy summer, undisturbed by beekeepers.
That brings us to today. I checked the blue nucleus (the Mark / Julia
swarm) first. All looked good, and the queen has started laying. That
meant I could mark her, so I popped her in the marking cage and put a dot
of blue paint on her thorax. Next, I checked the now-queenless brown
nucleus. There were a couple of queen cells, but no sign of any new
queen. I decided it would be easier for me to manage the nucs by combining
them, so I prepared by removing the old frames with the queen cells (there
was very little brood, so it was a good opportunity to remove the old comb
and burn it). I then replaced with fresh. The handy thing about the brown
nuc is it has a detachable floor, which allows me to put it on top of the
blue nuc and make a double-height nucleus, like this:
When combining colonies in this way there is a risk that the bees will
fight, so it helps if you can make them mingle slowly, so they get used to
each other. The way this is done is by putting a layer of newspaper
between the two boxes. The bees will nibble through the paper and start to
circulate through the holes that they make. This way, they get used to
each other's pheromones without getting aggressive. At least, that's the
idea - I will find out next week how they've got on.
All was fine in Katherine's hive - they were very well behaved, and no
queen cells.
In hive #2 I was please to see that the new queen (the one that had
emerged after the swarm) had started laying. She also got a blue dot on
her thorax, and then that was the end of the day's beekeeping. I'm pleased
to note that hive #2, which has had a bit of a temper in the last few
weeks, was much better behaved today.
Now that I'm back to three laying queens, I'm hoping that's the end of all
this swarming nonsense and everything will be a bit more orderly for the
next few weeks. One other thing - I have two newly-marked queens, and
regular readers will know that I always name my queens when I mark them.
Tune in to the next update to find out what they're called...
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