Tagged: Swarming

Hives in the garden 2

Bank Holiday Beekeeping – Culling a Queen.

Bank Holiday Monday proved to be perfect weather for beekeeping. Fortunate really as we needed to check on the status of our bees following the recent manipulations. It was sunny, warm(ish) at around 16°C and not too windy. First on the list were the two hives in the apiary at the bottom of the garden....

Parent Colony on far right, swarmed colony in the middle. 2

A Busy Beekeeping Day – Artificial Swarms

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...

The bees they are a swarming! 1

The bees they are a swarming!

Clettwr, the hive that I performed an artificial swarm on last week in an attempt to prevent them from swarming has – you’ve guessed it – swarmed today. So much for the artificial swarm, I obviously didn’t do it right. Our neighbours phoned me just after 10am to say the bees were out and about...

Queen Cells 6

Swarming Bees – Followed by a catch

Well, our inexperience with beekeeping has been shown once again. I was hoping for a nice easy inspection today. We inspected last week and reported that all was well in Clettwr but the bees in Leri had swarmed. Today I had hoped to have a quick check in Clettwr to make sure there were no...

Opening the Hive 2

Our Bees Have Swarmed – We Think

After some pretty poor weather for the bees last week, Friday was a scorcher – 25ºC and wall to wall sunshine and it was our normal day to do a hive inspection, exactly 7 days after the last one. We were hoping the bees would be out and about all day in the sunshine and...

Inspection Preparation 3

Hive Inspection Number 2 – Queen Cells in Leri!

Just over a week had passed since our first hive inspection and after our walk at Ynyshir, the sun came out, the wind eased a little so we had a perfect window of opportunity to make our second hive inspection. We were hoping to find that the bees had built out comb on a few...

Early Swarming Bees 1

Early Swarming Bees

This gorgeous spring weather, warm temperatures and the profusion of spring flowers and tree blossom seems to have been working wonders on the local honey bee colonies. We’ve yet to get our bees – they should arrive sometime in May, but we were at an Aberystwyth Beekeepers Association meeting on Thursday night and have been...