New season, new swarm

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 16 May 2014, 16:38

Last year I got hold of a small cast swarm of honey bees in August. They sadly didn't make it through the winter. I've checked with some local beeks and they have assured me it was nothing I'd done (or, at least, mainly nothing I'd done). The cast was just too small and late in the season to be viable.

In the intervening months, I have been contributing regularly to a forum called "Bio Bees" (http://www.biobees.com/forum/), which is a forum for natural, low-tech, bee-friendly bee-keeping. One of the members on there, a long-established natural bee-keeper called Barbara, kindly offered to give me her first primary swarm of the season. Her bees are mainly hardy large black British bees and so are well suited to our variable climate here in the UK.

Well, I got a call on my mobile during last lesson today from Barbara informing me that her strongest colony has just thrown a swarm and she is busy collecting it this afternoon and will be housing it in the home-made Warre hive I constructed and left at her apiary a couple of weeks ago.

I break up for the half term holiday at the end of next week and so I will be going up to County-Durham to collect then.

Can't wait.....

By the way, Barbara is looking for homes for her other swarms from her apiary that will be thrown this season (she allows all her hives to naturally swarm and does not engage in any swarm control or artificial splitting or queening of hives). Consequently, if anyone lives within commuting distance of Newcastle (her place is only about 15 miles south of there), PM me and I'll put you in touch with her.

tpals · Post by **tpals** » 16 May 2014, 21:28

Nice. Hadn't heard of the Warre design before. I set up a couple top-bar hives this year in case a swarm is looking for a home. I like the idea of natural bee keeping.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 16 May 2014, 22:30

Full instructions for building one can be downloaded from here:

http://warre.biobees.com/plans.htm

Post by **clv101** » 18 May 2014, 00:11

That sounds great Steve!

One of our hives swarmed (with old queen) either yesterday afternoon or this morning... we saw lots of scout bees around the place, looking for a new nest sites so knew the swarm must be near by and still in the open. After two hours searching my wife found it!

3m up on sloping ground, it wasn't an easy capture, but it's in a box now.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 30 May 2014, 12:25

Just picked up the bees and my Warre hive from Barbara's, 90 miles up the A1, last night. Drove home nice and steady down the A1 with no heater on and with the window slightly open, with no problems. We put a bee mesh over the entrance and so all bees tucked up safely.

Left them in the car on the drive last night. Took them out this morning and placed the hive in it's final location at the end of our long garden. Inspected through the viewing window of the top box and no comb collapse. Bees moving slowly around all the comb. All of the above at about 6:45am this morning.

Was a bit concerned when I first opened the hive as there was no activity. However, it's now lunchtime and they are all out and about doing orientation flights. so, all good. Some initial photos, taken early this morning:

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 30 May 2014, 13:50

That's a good solid hive, Steve. Are they 50mm timbers?

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 30 May 2014, 21:53

Odd that the smell of wood preserver doesn't bug them.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 31 May 2014, 00:07

kenneal - lagger wrote:That's a good solid hive, Steve. Are they 50mm timbers?

Thanks K. It's 2" by 9". I'd like to say I thought about those dimensions with great deliberation. However, the truth is, they just happened to be the cheapest untreated timbers of roughly the right dimensions in Jewsons at the time....

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 31 May 2014, 00:12

fuzzy wrote:Odd that the smell of wood preserver doesn't bug them.

It's a low-odour, water-based wood preserver and is only on the outside. Besides which, it was applied weeks before the bees were installed and so was fully dried. The inside is coated with shellac as this mimics the properties of propolis the bees use to coat the inside of the hive in order to control humidity, amongst it's other uses. In other words, the shellac give the bees a head-start in environmental control of the hive. They've been in the hive a week and a half and have already filled the top box. So, I think we might reasonably assume they are healthy and happy, whatever "happy" means, in bee terms.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 31 May 2014, 14:47

A couple of vids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEihU_W ... e=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3_tnuW ... e=youtu.be

Post by **clv101** » 31 May 2014, 18:50

Have you seen the book: At the Hive Entrance by H. Storch?
You can figure out a lot from just watching the entrance.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 31 May 2014, 19:45

clv101 wrote:Have you seen the book: At the Hive Entrance by H. Storch?
You can figure out a lot from just watching the entrance.

Thanks fior the recommendation CLV, I'll take a look. I'm also a member of a natural bee keeping forum where great emphasis is made of non-intrusive observation and I fully agree with that approach.

I suppose my most essential rule of thumb is that if the entrance is busy with the bees that belong to it (in other word, not robbers), then all is probably well. Or, at least, is being managed by the bees. The time to really worry is when things go excessively quiet.

A practical example of the above might be if there is a lot of activity at the entrance where workers are dragging out deformed pupae. An intrusive approach might be motivated to panic and intervene with treatment. Whereas, a non-intrusive approach might be inclined to see such hygienic behaviour as evidence of the colony taking care of it's own pathologies. It can certainly take some nerve to maintain that approach to be sure. However, the bee-keeper who I got the bees off has maintained that very approach for the last fifteen years, the majority of which have been treatment free, even to the extent of allowing her colonies to fully and naturally swarm which, as I'm sure you already know, is the main means by which bees naturally deal with heavy varoa infestations.

I hasten to qualify, I'm not against intervention per-se in the form of treatments or artificial feeding. I just think that these things should only be embarked upon in absolute extremis.

All of the above is basically the reason for my observation windows. In other words, maximum observation with minimum intrusion.