The swarm has left!

Where do I go wrong………………..it was the first good thing that has happened to me in weeks.

A swarm has arrived thank God!

I put this brood box on the roof of my garage and a large swarm arrived a few days ago. My biggest problem was getting it down! I suffer from the most appalling vertigo! I had put some lemon grass oil on the entrance as its supposed to attract them. I transferred them into a nuc and just about managed to get them down. Its not something I would want to do every day of the week. 7 frames in all, at least. I have fed them and they seem to be settling in, I really must cross my fingers to get them through the winter, I have had such a rotten time with the bees this past couple of years.

An update on the bees!

Well, the last colony just dwindled to nothing. The queen seemed to dissapear into thin air and the numbers dropped rapidly.

The last few months have been very depressing, after a great deal of effort I now have 1 very small colony, consisting of 3 frames!

I currently have them in a nuc and fed them today with a Vitagreen supplement which is supposed to build them up, they need something!

I am hoping I might be able to get a swarm from somewhere over the next few weeks, I really don’t want to go into the winter with only one colony!!

I put up some nucs with swarm bait, didn’t work , that’s the second year I have tried it. I keep living in hope. When I opened the hive up I found a visitor, the bait seemed to attract something else, and later I got a look at her, the LARGEST flying wasp thingy I have ever seen. I took a fuzzy pic of the nest, its not easy when you are wearing a bee suit. By opening the hive up I destroyed the nest, and went through a guilt trip about it, however I have since found out it was a European Hornet, which can sting five times! They are not native to these shores and are moving in because of climate change. That’s salved my conscience a bit! However, I have also since found out their numbers are declining in Europe because people think they are much more dangerous than they are, they will only sting when defending the nest, in fact it illegal to destroy a nest in Germany!! Oh dear! See URL for a pic, I have never seen one before….still perhaps she flew off and built another little nest?

just coming out to face the world

Hornets nest ( rather fuzzy)

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/2009/04/29/european-hornet-queen-perhaps/

Colony collapse disorder

Its ages since I put anything on my Blog.  Several reasons for this

1) I am selling my house!

I was all set to move when the stupid man who was buying pulled out at the point of exchange.  People kept saying it was because he was from South Africa that he gave me such a rotten time! I had spent weeks looking for another house and we were all rushing around like the Keystone Cops. I found a place with a large garden, suitable for bee-keeping, the right price and everything, all in six weeks and we were due to exchange. What a pillock ! I am sure anyone selling a house right now will feel some degree of empathy. Anyhow its now back under offer. In the meantime I am living out of boxes as this stupid ex buyer insisted he wanted to move in quickly!

2) there have been redundancies at work..so I have been busier than normal

and

3) I have been knackered!

I finally opened my bees up a week or so ago to discover that out of 3 hives in my garden one colony had died  from what looked like isolation starvation, despite my feeding them. The sudden low temperature and snow probably did it! A second colony when opened had not a bee in site! This Mary Celeste syndrome is most puzzling and not a little demoralising. I had three strong colonies and now I am down to one! To make matters worse my last remaining colony is very weak. There is a queen and she is laying but the whole colony only takes up two frames! I also noticed that the brood is in the super instead of the brood box. I contacted the Chairman of our local Beekeepers Association who told me that for some reason his bees were only laying in supers this year as well. He suggested that I feed them and take away the brood box so the bees dont have to go all the way through it to get to the brood. So the hive now consists of a super, floor etc!

I checked yesterday and she is still laying. Hopefully the nice weather recently may help. I have ordered a queen and optimistically set of a swarm bait nuc. You never know your luck………………

I watched a programme the other night about Colony Collapse Disorder ( AKA Mary Celeste Syndrome). The States seems more badly hit than us. I was some what appalled at the way the commercial beekeepers there transport those poor bees up and down the country. All that monoculture can’t possibly be good for nature, its no wonder the system is under stress. Miles and miles of a single crop, its totally unnatural.

I will keep you posted on the progress with my poor bees! I somehow dont think I will get much honey this year!

Springtime with the bees

I went to check my hives today, one of the colonies had died. I put some fondant in prior to the snow and the other two colonies survived but this one didnt. It was always the weakest colony. Its rather surpising that any of them got through the recent cold snap. I will put in a spring feed over the next few days. One of the colonies was clustered in the corner, although they do seem to be taking the fondant.
My life has been completely taken over by selling the house. I sold it quickly, about a fortnight, but now I have to spend every spare minute trying to find somewhere else I like. The garden is important of course.

very pretty but not too good for the bees at this time of year.

Honey Show and propolis

Wax rose and propolis tincture

I went to the National Honey Show yesterday and really enjoyed it. I didn’t manange to get to all the things I wanted because I overslept, but I still found it very worthwhile. I went to a workshop on making wax flowers…see my effort. Now to be honest with you I am busy enough as it is, I hardly have time to make wax flowers! Still I enjoyed it, I like trying my hand at something different. I wanted to go to a lecture on propolis but it was so packed that it was spilling out into the corridoor. C’est la vie.  I have managed to extract some propolis and have started taking it, but need to get a lot more before I stand any chance of being able to take it regularly.

One of the most interesting books I have read recently is on propolis. It called, unsurpisingly ‘Bee Propolis Natural Healing from the Hive’ by James Fearnley. I have become interested in propolis as a succesor to antibiotics. If we dont stop overprescribing them we are heading for a disaster. I have included instructions on how to prepare propolis in alcohol. I will put up other preparations later. According to Fearnley it can be used as a tincture or as an internal remedy. Take a few drops a day to boost your immune system. Use externally for cuts, grazes etc( I am not sure the alcohol wouldnt sting, I havent tried it yet)

I also bought a book on making Mead. I did try some at a stall and liked it. I need more honey though if I am going to make Mead as well as sell some to pay the costs of beekeeping.

Propolis tincture recipe.

Remove any obvious contaminants for the propolis, such as wood, bees etc.

Cut into small pieces and put in a clean jar with a tight fitting lid. (I used a propolis screen which I put into the freezer for a few hours to make it brittle, it was much easier to remove)

Pour in commercial drinking grade alcohol, 70% proof produces the best results but ordinary spirits such as Vodka or Gin are perfectly acceptable.

To make a 25% alcohol extract you need 250 g of proplis plus 4 times that weight/volume in alcohol- i.e. approx 1 litre. I found that I was only making a very small amount and it worked out that it was just enough alcohol to barely cover the propolis.

Store in a warm dark place for at least a week and shake daily.Optimum extraction takes between ten to fourteen days.

Filter through a fine cloth or a coffee filter.

Place in the fridge for a couple of days and then filter again with the finest filter possible.

Propolis

I read a very interesting book a couple of months ago about the health benefits of propolis. I am usually slightly skeptical about amazing health claims but these are well researched. The problem with propolis is you can’t patent it, so the drug companies are not interested….and it’s the drug companies that fund the vast majority of research in the western health care sector. I teach nursing, and medical ethics among other things at Uni, and I found the book well documented. This prompted me to look into producing my own. For those of you who don’t know what propolis is, it’s a kind of glue bees use in the hive and it has antiseptic and antifungal properties among others. In a world moving towards the post-antibiotic era I really don’t feel this sort of thing should be overlooked because of commercial interests.

Consequently I bought some propolis screens for a couple of my hives. The bees take one look at the mesh and start filling all the gaps (bees dont like gaps!) At this time of year I use Apistan to reduce the number of varroa mite and I suddenly realised that perhaps I shouldn’t be leaving the propolis screens in there while chemicals were being used. So today I removed them, you simply put them in the freezer for 24 hours and remove the propolis when it gets brittle. I will clean off the propolis and use it, I thought it quite interesting to see how much the bees had produced in a couple of months. Not a lot, but then it’s a value added crop to honey production.

After I have finished the varroa treatment I will return the screens and leave them there for the winter. I don’t think my bees need an autumn feed but if they do I will put it on afterwards.

This years honey crop

I havent done too badly this year. I only have three hives……and I lost a queen somewhere in May……so I had to breed another one, holding one of the hives up. Still I have managed to get more honey than in previous years, my beekeeping expertise has been sadly lacking. I need to get some more supers before the July rush next year, I only just had enough. The hives now have their varroa strips in place. I intend to move this winter and moving the bees fills me with dread so I guess I will have to overwinter them in the local apiary. Of all the things I have a real problem with in beekeeping its the lifting. I wish someone could come up with an invention to reduce the heavy lifting involved, I can very barely lift a full super and and I get older that is going to be an increasing problem. In my travels I have discovered this site which sells draw hives

http://www.drawhive.co.uk/hivetypes.html

They are quite pricey, and it may help a bit but still doesnt get over the perennial problem of moving hives, something I have come to dread. He sells the plans, I really wish I had good carpentry skills. Having to pay someone is never economical.

some of this years honey crop