Bees

At the weekend Dad and I went to an open air auction of bee equipment. We went two years ago when beekeeping was totally new to us so thought we'd go back this year. Knowledge makes a huge difference! It was absolutely amazing the amount of utter crap people wanted to sell - I'm talking woodworm, chunks flying off in all directions, warped, cracked and so bad that I'd think twice before even using them for firewood! I think the sellers did much better than the buyers, with cleanish wax selling for £20 than you can buy pristine wax in Thornes, nucs selling for £220 (twice as much as at Thorne's) and full sized hives selling for £340! People were paying £35 for 2009 New Zealand queens...seems mad to me, those queens have just done a season in NZ and will be tired out by now!

So anyway we may try breeding up some nucs this year with the hope of selling them next year!

We've been doing loads with the hives this week. One hive was getting ready to swarm very early in the year. We did an artifical swarm into a nuc and a full sized hive. Since then we've made another nuc, and have started breeding up some queens from all the cells they'd made. They should be out by today and hopefully making some practice flights this weekend - just got to hope for sunny weather!


Queen cell grafted onto mating nuc frame.

So, we came into the year with 3 full sized hives. We now have 4 full sized hives, 2 nucs and a mating nuc. We also have 6 queens on the way that we ordered way back in January before we got mixed up in all this queen rearing, so I don't know WHAT we'll be doing with those...maybe splitting another of the full sized hives into nucs, requeening any swarms we catch and requeening the hive that has chalkbrood (apparently genetics can play a small part in it). So plenty to do.

Dad's mentor Geoff, who has kept bees for 30 years, now has his bees filling up their 3RD SUPERS. ALREADY! We couldn't work out how he's managed it, as when we heard it ours weren't even contemplating moving up into their first supers! However, when Dad was doing some of the splits he removed the porter escapes from the coverboard and since then the bees have moved up into the super. The one hive he forgot to do it on hadn't moved up, so VENTILATION IS KEY in getting your bees to fill supers - next year we'll remember to REMOVE PORTER ESCAPES EARLIER IN THE YEAR. Now we've done it though they are working their little socks off bringing in LOADS of nectar so hopefully we'll be catching Geoff up very soon.

The bees are looking healthy and happy and I got some great photos this week...



Bees on the alighting board, the pale yellow blobs on her back legs are her pollen sacks, bulging with yellow pollen.

Bees on a comb. The majority are workers, the larger one in the center however is a drone.


Bees around a queen cup, a special cell that new queens are laid in. You can see nectar glistening in the surrounding comb.

This is our drone trapping frame. This frame is shorter than the other frames in the brood box. The bees make more comb underneath to even it out, and for some reason they like to put drone brood down there. When the drone brood is capped over we cut it off, take it home, freeze it and theow it away, to kill a large portion of the varroa population. The funny zig zag pattern is where the wires are in the wax - we give the bees a bit of wax called foundation to get them started, and the foundation has wire zig zags in it for strength.

We've done our first canoe trip of the year as well this week. It's amazing what you'll find on the canal banks - hazel, blackberry, elder and even raspberry. I can't wait for autumn foraging this year...I'm hoping it will be a good Prunus year this year so that there are plenty of sloes and damsons!

As far as the garden's concerned, it's all looking great.

The pond is looking gorgeous and green and the wildlife is going mad. We have a group of collared doves (mostly a pair, but sometimes the male appears to have more than one wife) who are getting ridiculously tame, as are the blackbirds. I try to discourage them (half-heartedly, I must admit) but they just look at me blankly.

Everywhere's filling up now, I've ended up having to interplant my celery with a catch crop of lettuce as I'm running out of space and need to make the most of the little I've got! The courgettes have been planted out in our Mango Chutney barrel planters this year though, so that will save some room.

Before I leave you, here is a gardening tip:

*ROOT CROPS*

All last year I was thinning out my radishes etc. which is bonkers. Sow as thinly as you can and just leave them. Doing it this way this year I've got the best crop of radishes I've ever had, my beetroots are for once looking promising and I've got turnips and salad onions bulking up too. Stick 'em in and then leave them, don't faf about.

I never hrow any of these in trays or modules, as this disturbs the roots too much and they never amount to anything, although I find that carrots actually do better being sown in modules and planted out when they're about 5cm tall.

The first pickings from my overwintering carrot crop - they don't look like much, but they're the best I've ever grown, and not bad for heavy clay soil!

Also do not do what I have done this year and start things off in January. It only damages them. Plenty of time to sow your tomatoes even now.