Successful year

I have enjoyed my bees this year and learnt a lot! I sold lots of my honey to friends and over 20 jars around the village. I found that nearly 50% of people that answered the doors bought a jar! I went down most of Martins Hill Lane and all of Whitehayes and some of Footners Lane. Several people wanted more later but I had sold out! I had over 90 pounds of Honey from Genesis hive. Negus and Trinity have just become established this year and so I would not expect to get any honey from them but maybe next year. I made the mistake of selling or giving away all  my stock and did not keep enough for myself and my family. I bought 3 more supers and a new Commercial brood box - Thorne's Cedar seconds flat packs. Each hive is now wrapped in wire mesh to try to protect them from woodpeckers.
Autumn has been very mild with the first really cold days did not arrive until mid November. This is good in some ways because numbers and brood would be around for longer but it also means that they will be eating into more of their stores. Still, each hive has a super of honey on top and the brood boxes are large. I will feed them some fondant in early January.

Honey!

Last week of August I extracted my honey. I put a clearer board below the honey supers - this has a valve in it that allows the bees to go down into the main brood chamber but not back up into the supers. The following evening most of the bees were out of the supers so I brushed them off each frame and brought the 4 honey boxes home. The following day I uncapped each frame and spun each one in an extractor that I borrowed from my local association.

This was then poured into a bottling tank and the next day put into proper honey jars that I bought. I now need to get some labels sorted.
I put the empty supers back on top of my hives for the bees to take the last bit of honey out and tidy up the comb. However, they have decided to store more nectar in their instead! I think they are getting nectar from the heather on Guss Common as it is too early for Ivy. I will probably leave the supers on over the winter to increase their stores.

All change

I now have a third hive! This was ordered earlier in the year from a local commercial keeper. I was a bit concerned about getting a nucleus quite late in the season and so I asked my mentor about this. He suggested swapping it's position with one of my other hives. This would mean that the flying bees would return to the nucleus hive and so boost their numbers. This sounded like a good idea so I did it. However, the following week I did an inspection and found no queen! Aghh! The flying bees had killed her! Oh well, I won't make that mistake again. So, the hive went back to the supplier for him to introduce a new queen ( more money!). This worked well and the hive is now building up numbers well in  preparation for winter.

2nd colony!

When we did the big move in May, I left the old box with the old frames in the apiary. The thinking was that if Genesis did swarm, they may well go into this "bait hive". Well, Genesis has not swarmed but a swarm from elsewhere has taken up residence!!!! There were some spare super frames in a box above the main box and they have drawn comb on these and are storing plenty of nectar and pollen. There are a decent number of bees but no eggs or brood yet. They seem of good temperament too. I condensed the frames down to one box and put it all back together. I put the remaining frames in a box in front of the hive for them to rob out any honey and pollen in there. I will check them again next week. If there is a queen there, which I guess there is, and she mates then we may start to see eggs soon.

Extraction

On 22nd May, Steve and I took off the first super. We just had to brush a few bees off the frames. We brought it home in the car on an upturned lid - no drips came out.
I then sliced the wax cappings off with a bread knife and put them into a large sieve. The frames were then put into a nine frame radial extractor borrowed from the BADSBKA. We spun and spun, fast and slow, in both directions and the frames emptied themselves of their golden honey. I left it in the extractor overnight and then ran it into a bottling tank the next day. (Remember to wash out the extractor with COLD water - put plenty in, leave it for half hour and then rinse). From there it was straight forward to put it into jars - got about 22 lbs of Spring honey. Sold most of it to church members!

The big move!

New hives arrived early May. They are like pieces of furniture! Lovely finish and made to precision by a beekeeper in Yorkshire who is a furniture maker. I found him on the internet and then checked him out on the forum and got glowing reports about his handiwork. I am very pleased - excellent product at an excellent price. So, Steve and I transferred the frames from the old commercial box into the  new - BUT WE DIDN'T FIND QUEEN - Aghhh! Just hope we missed her and she went in. Removed the old brood box (now empty of brood) but found a sealed queen cell on comb built off of the shallow frame. Don't think it can be viable as queen not been down there for 4 weeks! There is also an empty queen cell so it is possible that a new queen has been made in the bottom brood box (that can happen as the extra large nest box formed by one box atop another can mean that the queen substance does not reach all parts of the hive) The new queen (if she exists) will now have been shaken into the new box along with most of the bees that were in the bottom box. I kept some bees in the old box and moved it to one side to see what happens to the sealed queen cell. The 1st honey super is now pretty full so I added another. I took out a full frame of honey from the brood box and one from the old brood box. Took them home and crushed and drained about 6 lbs of honey off!! Delicious!

Super time!

The bees are now well established in their new brood box with plenty of new bees being produced. Since the queen has more room now they should build up numbers nicely. I still have the old box in place with a queen excluder between to stop her laying in the old box. I will give them another week with the old box in place - there should be no brood left now but they may move their honey stores up from there. I put a honey super ontop 2 weeks ago. Initially I put it on with a queen excluder below it but after a week they were still not interested so I did as Ted Hooper suggests and took out the queen excluder to get them interested. It seems he was right (no surprise there then) and within a few days they were drawing comb. Put the QE back.
Did an inspection today and there is half a frame of honey in the super!!! Plenty of eggs, unsealed and sealed brood in main box.

Wow, an exciting weekend!

So, I go and do an inspection on Friday, it was a lovely warm (20 C) day - they have gone crazy! They have built extra comb up through the crown board and into the roof space - about 5 columns of it containing honey and brood. Help! I scraped it all out and went through the brood chamber - no queen cells but very crowded in there. I think I was about 2 weeks too late putting on a super. There is obviously quite a nectar flow on right now. Could be something to do with a huge field of Oil Seed Rape (OSR) half a mile away behind Sainsbury's that has come into flower this week. Not sure what to do so shut it all up and came home and phoned Paul my mentor. He said I had 2 options:
1. Add a super and get some honey!
2. Take this opportunity to move them easily into the bigger Commercial box by putting it on top - the theory is they will move up into there, draw out the foundation on the brand new frames and then the queen should move up as she prefers laying eggs in fresh comb and there is more room.
I have gone for option 2 as this is my main objective this Spring. So, I went back and put a Commercial box with empty frames on top of the old box. (I had to use my old box for now as I am still waiting for my new ones to arrive but this is an emergency!!!)

I returned 2 days later with Steve (as helper) and Matt (as photographer) to:
Change the floor for a new Varroa floor, add some Varroa treatment ( Api Life Var) and to feed them some 2x1 syrup.
Checked the top box and they have drawn comb on most frames and there are eggs! In just 2 days!!

 Saw the queen and realised it was good opportunity to put the queen excluder between the 2 boxes to keep her in the top. Pauline brought it up for us and we slotted it in. Brilliantly, we forgot to move the feeder before we tilted the top box and ended up pouring syrup through the hive! Never mind, the bees will clean that up.

So, half the job is done. Did not need those filler frames I made last week but they are a long way towards moving house into a much bigger property with relative ease. Still so much to learn.
Big thanks to Steve and Matt today.

First inspection of the year

Went through half the frames. There were plenty of stores of pollen and honey and tons of sealed brood. Saw eggs and larvae. I am pleased to say they are still of a lovely temperament and a joy to handle today. I need to start preparing their move to a Commercial brood box and so I will start making the frame fillers soon so that I can transfer the National frames over. Need to buy the box too! My overtime money should pay for that.

Pollen

Nice day on Friday - sunny and 8C. Bees were flying and bringing in LOTS of pollen from pale yellow to bright orange. They still haven't finished the fondant - one tub has about one quarter left.

External inspection

Had a look today - plenty of activity in and out and pollen being brought into the hive - pale and bright yellow so must be from more than one plant. They must be so good at finding it - I don't see many flowers out at the moment - a few crocuses, snowdrop but no dafodils yet. They are taking the fondant and have eaten about half of one tub. Looks like plenty of bees in there.

Winter feeding

By now, the queen should be being brought in to lay again by the workers. This means big changes in the hive: winter bees can survive with a cluster temperature of as low as 65 F but once eggs and larvae are present a much higher temperature of around 90 F is required. So, the workers need to consume more stores in order to maintain that level of heat. Consequently, if they are low on their own stores of honey they can starve. 3 weeks ago I gave Genesis some sugar fondant - 2 Chinese takeaway sized tubs over the holes in the cover board. When I checked 2 weeks ago they were feeding on it and there were plenty of bees in the hive. I will check them again this weekend and see how much they are taking. I hope they will be bringing some pollen in themselves soon as they need that to make new bees!