We had a good couple of days at the weekend. The sun came out on Friday and I managed to get one step ahead of the weekend by mowing the lawn and tidying the garden. Not a bad start to the weekend and with no Scouts & Explorers this week we had some time to ourselves so I put the moth trap out and had a little night sky observing session, mainly looking at Saturn with the telescope.
Saturday started of fairly relaxed as we waited for the day to warm up so that we could inspect the bees. It wasn’t warm at around 12°C, but there was little wind and the sun was shining. The bees were busily coming and going and we were desperate to see how they were doing as we hadn’t had chance to take a look for a while.
We started off with the hive we called Clettwr. This is the strongest of the hives at our house. It was looking a little quiet, but we could see eggs and larvae, we saw the queen, but there was also a queen cell present. This is a sure sign that the bees are about to swarm. Time for some action, time to perform an artificial swarm.
The Artificial Swarm
The idea behind the artificial swarm is essentially to create a swarm yourself. This means taking the bees that would have swarmed out of the hive and putting them into another one. The bees in the original hive then think that the queen has left taking a swarm with her, so they raise a new queen from the queen cell. Meanwhile, the bees you’ve taken out of the hive into a new hive act as though they have swarmed and start a new colony with the original queen. The theory is that the urge to swarm is then reduced and we as bee-keepers don’t lose any bees when a natural swarm leaves the hive.
The Process
We hadn’t done this before in our bee-keeping career, so we had to think about it a little as we did it, but the process is as follows. Or at least, this is what we did:
Starting with the original hive (Hive A) containing the entire colony; queen, flying bees, nurse bees, brood, food and at least one queen cell.
- Set up a new hive (Hive B) next to and facing the same way as Hive A.
- Remove one of the empty frames from the middle of Hive B and put it aside.
- Remove the supers from Hive A
- Find the queen in Hive A, make sure there are no queen cells on the frame that she is on (destroy them if there are) and place the frame complete with the queen and any bees that are on that frame into the gap in Hive B.
- Check the Queen cells remaining in Hive A and destroy all but one or two of them.
- Close the spacing between the frames in Hive A and place the spare frame from Hive B into the brood box of Hive A.
- Swap the postions of Hive A and Hive B by moving the brood boxes from one to the other.
- Place the supers onto Hive B (now in the position of Hive A).
- Close up both hives.
After doing this you end up with two hives and a split colony.
Hive A (now in the position of Hive B) contains all of the frames from the original hive except the one containing the queen. It therefore has almost all of the brood, all of the nurse bees, the queen cell and any stores that were in the brood box. However, any flying bees that were in it will return to Hive B.
Hive B (now in the position of the original hive) contains the artificially swarmed portion of the colony. This includes the queen, any nurse bees and brood that were on her frame, and all of the flying bees from the colony. The fact that this hive is now in the same location as the original hive means that any flying bees will return to it.
The Results
Parent colony on far right, swarmed colony in the middle.
We now have two colonies that can be described as “swarm” and “parent”. The swarm colony on the original site (Hive B) has an old queen, an abundance of flying bees and almost no brood. This is very similar to the circumstances that a swarm is faced with. It also has stores of nectar and honey in the supers and the small amount of brood forms a focus for the bees activities.
Our parent colony has no laying queen, brood of all ages, queen cells that are about to “hatch” and a recently depleted number of bees. This is rather like the state of a colony immediately after a swarm has issued.
Hopefully the two hives will now be very busy for the next several weeks. The swarm colony has to draw out the frames of foundation so that the queen can start laying – just as they would if they had actually swarmed.
The parent colony will raise a new queen from one of the queen cells. She will have to go on a mating flight and hopefully start laying in a few weeks time. Meanwhile, much of the sealed brood will be emerging giving an increase in the population of adult bees.
What Next?
That isn’t quite all. It is possible to balance the number of bees in each hive somewhat and also try to prevent further cast swarms issuing from the parent hive. Over the next couple of weeks, the number of flying bees in the swarm colony will reduce as they die off. These won’t be replaced by new bees for a few weeks as there is very little in the way of brood in this colony.
In contrast to this, the flying force in the parent colony will be increasing as the nurse bees age and start taking flight. As the flying force increases in the parent colony it is quite likely to issue out cast swarms.
So, next week we’ll move the position of the parent colony to the other side of the swarm colony. The idea behind this is that any flying bees from the parent colony will return to their hive to find it gone so will end up going back to the closest hive which will be the one containing the swarm colony. This act will bolster the number of flying bees in the swarm colony (just what they will be needing). It will also reduce the number of flying bees in the parent colony, which should prevent them from issuing a cast swarm.
Back to the inspections.
With that done, we inspected the next hive, Leri. All was well in here, we saw the queen and no queen cells so we left them as they were. All of the hives were very light on stores though so we’ve fed them some syrup as well.
As the sun was still shining and we had been required to artificially swarm the first hive, we thought we had better take the opportunity to drive into Aberystwyth and inspect the bees in our out apiary as well.
This one wasn’t straight forward either. On the first inspection this year I’d seen a supersedure cell. On the last inspection I hadn’t seen the queen so we weren’t sure if she was still there or if a supersedure had taken place. As we looked through the hive we could see eggs and larvae of all stages but couldn’t see the queen. There was also several queen cells in the hive. That was odd, there was no sign of a queen but something had been laying eggs recently and there were signs of swarming.
We had another look through and this time did spot the queen. She was looking a little tired though. However, now that we had her, it was time to perform and artificial swarm on this colony as well.
Taking Stock
So, from three smallish colonies on Saturday morning, we now have 5 small colonies in total.
One remains unchanged, hungry but looking OK. We need to keep an eye on this one as it is likely to show signs of swarming soon as well.
We have two parent colonies. We need to wait for these to re-queen from their queen cells, need to move them next week and need to check for signs of further swarming.
We have two swarmed colonies. We need to check these to make sure that the queen is OK and that they have drawn out some frames so that the queen can start laying.
Phew, what a busy bee-keeping day.
Tags: Artificial Swarm, Beekeeping, Swarm Control, Swarming
After a fairly lack lustre bike and run session on Thursday evening and then a similarly poor turbo trainer session on Friday I wasn’t really looking forward to a hard bike session followed immediately by a hard run on Saturday.
I was coming to the end of a hard week of training, my achilles was sore and brick sessions (a bike followed by a run) are notoriously hard. What’s more, I’d mowed the lawn the day before so my back was a little sore and we’d had a busy day running around doing some beekeeping so I wasn’t really ready for it. Despite this, I set up a little transition area – well, I put my running shoes outside – before we headed off into Aberystwyth to inspect the bees in our out apiary.
The plan was to inspect the bees, then drive to the leisure centre where Anna and Morgan were going to go swimming. I meanwhile would cycle back to Borth, do my bike session and then head off for a run. The bike session went well. After a 10 mile warm up it consisted of ten 1 mile hard efforts with 90 seconds recovery between them. I did it by going backwards and forwards between Borth and Tre-Ddol a couple of times and pushed quite hard during the intervals. It was then a quick 2 mile ride back to our house a rapid transition into my running shoes and then off for a quick loop around to the boatyard.
I went flat out on the run for the first mile, doing it in 5:41, my fastest ever 1 mile. I was wearing my new race shoes which felt lovely on the tarmac, but weren’t so great off road. My pace therefore slowed a little for the next mile which was across the soft sand of the estuary but I kept the effort up as long as I could. Things got painful for the last stretch back towards our house. This was back on tarmac but went up over a little hill and into the wind. I kept the pressure on as much as I could and finally finished the varied terrain 2.5 miles in 15:07. That was a new PB for that course, my previous being 16:03 set almost a year ago on May 26th 2011.
It’s good to push hard now and then and maybe I am getting a little faster? Lets hope so.
Although, you could argue that it’s all down to the shoes. I’ve only worn my new race shoes (Brooks T7 Racers) twice. Once in the Pwllheli Triathlon where I set a new PB for 5k and then once on Saturday where I set a new PB for the boatyard loop.
After our successful viewing of Saturn on Friday night, Morgan was excited about staying up on Saturday night to have a look for himself. We’re not sure if it was the prospect of seeing Saturn for the first time or the staying up late that had him excited, but with clear skies it promised much.
Venus was extremely bright in the West sky long before sunset and by the time dusk fell was shining like a beacon to the NW. Mars and Saturn were both visible way before darkness fell as well. Mars to the SW and Saturn to the SE. I therefore set the telescope up in daylight and we managed to have a decent look at Saturn before it was even dark.
If anything it was slightly clearer than the night before with the rings angled nicely towards us so that we could see them sharply. The moons had moved around a little but were still visible as well. Morgan had a good look, and then we tried to take some photos.
Getting photos using the telescope as a lens is really diffiuclt, but I wasn’t having any luck with just the camera either. As darkness fell I did get a couple of semi-decent shots, but the photos don’t really do it justice. It is a lovely object to observe so it’s a shame I can’t share it with you here with a photo that looks as good as we could see it. However, you can tell that it is Satrun and you can clearly see the rings in the photos, and if you look really closely you can just about make out two of it’s Moons. I think Rhea is just to the bottom right of Saturn in the 2nd of these photos and Titan can be seen a little way off to the top left of the planet. (Click on the photo to enlarge it and look really closely!)
Saturn
Saturn with two moons just visible
Tags: Astro-photography, Astronomy, Photography, Saturn
I put the moth trap out again last night and after a couple of non-starters where we’ve had no moths at all, we finally had some. Only two mind you, but it is a start.
In the box this morning were:
- 1x Water Carpet
- 1x Angle Shades
Temperatures did drop to 4.2°C last night though so it still isn’t warm out there, and despite the lovely sunny day yesterday, only rose to 12.6°C during the day. At least it made it to double figures.
The Angle Shades was a nice specimen.
Angle Shades Moth
Angle Shades Moth
Tags: Moth Trapping, Moths, Weather
The second half of our night-time science experiments didn’t go so well. After the success of viewing Saturn, we put the moth trap out. I wasn’t expecting loads of moths in the trap as it has been so cold lately, but with clear, fairly dark skies, light winds and temperatures only dropping to 6°C I thought we might at least get something.
This time last year and the year before we were getting moth trap counts in the region of 10-30 moths from over 20 different species with some particularly busy nights moth-wise such as the one on May 20th 2010. Once again last night though there wasn’t a single moth in the trap. Maybe its time to change the bulb?
Things are definitely taking a while to warm up this Spring though. Looking back through the blog from last May and May 2010, things were much more advanced.
- There were plenty of moths,
- The garden was in full bloom,
- The bees had started swarming,
- We had the usual caterpillar invasions in the garden.
It wasn’t all good though as the garden did take a bit of a battering towards the end of May.
So far this year things are quite a way behind. The garden has quite a bit of catching up to do, we’ve barely been able to inspect the bees (although we hope to do that today), there isn’t any sign of the caterpillar nests yet, temperatures have barely reached double figures for a while and there aren’t any moths at all.
It does look as though we are going to have a nice day today though.
Come on Spring, get your act together.
View up the Dyfi Valley this Morning
At last, the rain has stopped, the murk has cleared and we had a relatively clear night in store. I mowed the lawn so was already one step ahead this weekend and I was able to get out the night-time toys – namely the telescope and moth trap.
Not at the same time of course as the two are mutually exclusive pastimes because the last thing you want whilst looking at the night sky is a dirty great big light trap shining away giving off light pollution. That said, I did start my star gazing before it was fully dark and I was actually planet gazing rather than star-gazing.
The target was Saturn, and what a view we had. Saturn was clear and bright and nicely aligned so that the rings were clearly visible. We could just about make out some banding on the planets surface and could see a couple of the larger moons. I think the moons we could see where Rhea and Titan.
Unfortunately as it was 10pm before it was even partially dark Morgan was already in bed. I did think about waking him up that he too could see Saturn, but in the end made do with waking Anna up who was a asleep on the sofa instead. She was pretty reluctant to come outside at first but was glad she did and got quite excited about seeing Saturn. So much so that she phoned Dave & Sarah next door and got them to come and have a look too! If it’s looking clear tonight then I think we’ll have another go and will keep Morgan up this time.
As I’ve said before, its one thing seeing amazing photos in a book or online, but seeing the actual object through a telescope with your own eyes is pretty special. Saturn was certainly looking good last night.
Tags: Astronomy, Saturn, Telescope
The veggies are all coming on well. The purple sprouting broccoli is providing us with plenty of delicious purple florets that are not only tasty but have to bee good for us too.
Purple Sprouting Broccoli
The wind isn’t helping the beans at the moment, but if the courgettes continue as they are at the moment we will be overrun with them soon. Hopefully the other veggies we have on order will arrive soon and the garden will be feeding us all summer long.
With race season in the triathlon world on its way, it time to start working on some speed in my training rather than the strength and endurance workouts I’ve been doing for the last 8 weeks or so. As part of my periodised training plan I’m moving from the strength and endurance phase into a speed / race phase.
This means shorter, sharper, more intense workouts interspersed with a few longer sessions here and there. I did my first fast run at the weekend, the first time in months that I’ve done any intervals above race pace. Going fast always feels good no matter what mode of transport – even plain old running can feel good when you are going at a decent pace.
My workout was:
- 10 min warm up
- 3x 0.5 miles at Race pace (6:00 -6:15 min/mile) with 0.5 mile recovery run
- 6x 0.2 miles at above race pace (faster than 5:50 min/mile) with 90 secs recovery
- cool down.
I actually ended up doing the 0.2 mile fast efforts at closer to 5:15-5:30 min/mile pace which felt really good. If only I could keep that up for a full 5k! The thing is, the only way to get faster is to start running faster so although these are only short efforts the idea is that they get me used to running at that speed and eventually with enough training I’ll be able to keep that speed up for longer.
It’s all well and good training at below race pace on longer runs to build base, strength and endurance and over time these sessions mean that running that distance at that pace become easier. They also prepare your body for the more intense workouts needed during a speed phase and therefore hopefully mean that you are less likely to get injured whilst doing these hard, high intensity efforts. They don’t however increase your speed, so it’s now time to change gear a little and start adding training stress in the form of speed and intensity.
This will of course hurt, but lets hope it works.
Phew, it may be Wednesday already, but after a long weekend, it feels as though we’ve only just started back properly this week.
There was loads going on in this part of the world over the weekend. The coast path was officially opened with a ceremony in Aberystwyth at which the band that Anna plays in were performing. It was the weekend of the Dyfi Enduro in Machynlleth. I didn’t ride it this year but I was in Machynlleth on Sunday morning for a run and a swim so got a bit of feel for the usual carnival atmosphere that surrounds the event.
The Celtic Challenge rowing race was on. This year 22 teams took part in what is the World’s longest true rowing race. The teams race from Arklow in County Wicklow, Ireland to Aberystwyth, a distance of about 90 nautical miles.
Anna and Morgan spent most of the weekend with the Scouts marshalling and manning water stations for the runners at the Red Kite Challenge. They had a pretty cold day stood in the wind on Saturday but Sunday was a little better, despite the fact that they had some flurries of snow whilst stood in the hills at one point. Yep, snow in May!
I had a day to myself on Saturday and managed to fit in a cycle and a run, did some work in the garden and managed to do some work mowing a neighbours garden as well. The cycle involved some pretty hard flat out efforts and the run was the first time for months that I’ve ran at a pace that is faster than race pace.
Sunday was a good day for some training as well, with a hill rep run and a swim in the morning. We then had some friend (Dennis & Sophie) coming for dinner so with a nice tidy house and cupboards full of food, I had some time to myself in the afternoon. The sun was shining, the garden was looking lovely so I actually got to spend an hour or so just sitting in the garden relaxing, and soaking up the atmosphere.
It was good to catch up with Dennis and Sophie on Sunday evening and it provided a good opportunity for us to have a nice dinner, lots of wine and even some whisky as we chatted into the evening.
Monday was a good day too, with a decent breakfast for all of us, then coffee and cakes! This was followed by hill reps on the bike for me once Dennis and Sophie had left for home. The hills reps do make pretty elevation charts.
Elevation Data from Hill Reps
We then all headed into Aberyswyth where I went for a swim in the sea with the triathlon club. The weather broke whilst we were swimming and absolutely poured down so we all retreated to a cafe where we had dinner and hot chocolate before heading home to get ready for school and work the next day. The end of a busy, long bank holiday weekend. It was particularly long for Morgan as he was off school on Thursday as his school was being used as a polling station and he was then off ill on Friday as well. It’s never nice going back after a bit of a break.
Roll on the next long weekend.
In addition to the Spring flowers in the garden and the blossom on the trees which the bees seem to be enjoying, there is some fantastic foliage around at this time of year too.
Bumblebee on our Cherry Blossom
The lupins are full of vigour.
Lupins Full of Vigour
The Spirea is on fire.
Spirea on Fire
Tags: Gardening
