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or Conducting A First Inspection

Friends Henrietta and John had acquired a Nuc. Of bees, A Hive, and (before lockdown) my services as a Mentor.

With the relaxation in lockdown, and maintaining a strict 2 m separation, a Mentored hive inspection took place on Sunday 17th May. I took a camera with reasonable telephoto, and was able to take photos to help with this article.

Henrietta & John’s Hive is beyond a pond – a great source of water for thirsty bees, and a good 2 metre wide barrier!

John got the smoker going – using grass pellets, which is fine – anything dry and burnable works as smoker fuel – my favourite is hessian (sacking, burlap to our American friends). Feel free to experiment – corrugated cardboard, rotting wood, hay, straw, wood shavings.

Supplement with sprigs from Rosemary if you don’t want to come home smelling like a bonfire!

Lighting the smoker is a bit of an art, and keeping it alight surprisingly difficult … after 29 years beekeeping, they still go out on me! Always have your lighter in your pocket! 

After smoking the bees, Henrietta took the roof off and put it where no one was going to fall over it!

Its good to smoke the bees and wait a couple of minutes after, so that they have time to respond to the smoke.

The generally used explanation for the effectiveness of smoke is that it stimulates their flight or fight response, naturally bees would live in woodland, and the smoke simulates a forest fire; they can not fight, so they prepare to flee, filling their stomachs with honey; this makes them more docile, and also less able to sting as they can not bend their abdomens. The smoke also interferes with their ability to sense the alarm pheromone, which may be a more scientific explanation. Whatever, it works!

Off with the Crown Board – often we’d leave inspecting the supers till last, but we wanted to find out what was going on and so have a good look now!

The super was only put on the hive a week ago, so we were delighted to find that most of the frames had been drawn out into honey comb, and there was nectar, and even some sealed honey, on the frames.

In order to “encourage” the bees, we moved a couple of undrawn frames to the centre, where they’ll draw them out, and the full frames to the edge – they’ll finish them off over the next 10 weeks.

Question – This hive is a “National” with a single brood box and a single super; what are the alternative hive types, and brood box configuration.

Good use of the hive tool, to lever up frames for inspection.

The frames here are fitted into “castellation” type runners, which hold them in position at a precise distance apart, so that the all important bee space is maintained. There are other ways of spacing the frames.

We took one of the super frames out, just to see what was going on; the frame went in with undrawn comb 7 days ago, so in 7 days the colony have

• drawn the frames out and

• filled with nectar (the shiny liquid you can see in each cell is nectar – honey in progress!).

And they've been working on the other frames in the super too!

Great work Girls!!

We moved unused frames to the centre to encourage the bees to start work on them, and put the “filling” ones in their place – there’s about 10 weeks till the end of July when the harvest comes off and hopefully the bees will completely fill this super, and another in that time! Perhaps 50 Lb (25Kg) of lovely, local honey …. what will it taste like? What colour will it be?

Question … why is honey different colours and flavours?

When we took the super off, we found wild comb on the queen excluder; this is slightly annoying (making wax requires a lot of energy on the part of the bees) and will be in the way.

We cleaned this off – wax is a valuable bye product – think candles, think furniture polish, think lip balm or hand cream.

With the queen excluder removed, we had access to the brood box; the real interest.

The history of this colony is that it came as a 5 frame nuc 5 weeks ago, and you can see that Henrietta and John put the 5 frames in the centre of the hive (the darker ones with the coloured ends) and then put new frames on each side (so from left to right you can see the dark brown “dummy board”, 3 new frames, 5 older frames, and then 3 more new frames).

QUESTION: you can see the old frames are marked with paint; why do you think that could be? What colours are used here, and why?

Henrietta took the “dummy board” out and again some wild comb had been formed on that – we cut that off and set it aside with the other wax.

This makes a bit of space so you can remove the other frames without rolling bees against each other.

Question: why did the bees make the wild or “brace” comb?

This was frame 3, and the bees have been working hard. In 5 weeks, they've drawn this comb out. Filled it with brood, nectar (uncapped) and honey (capped); you can see that the colour of the (wax) cappings is different for honey and brood.

Henrietta shook the bees off so we could see the frame better, and here it is again. You can see a bit more wild comb at the bottom of the frame too – we left this.

The lines in the brood area are where the wire in the foundation runs; the queen has chosen not to lay eggs in those cells. The wire will not be completely embedded, so the queen will reject the cell when checking it before laying an egg into it.

Henrietta shook the bees off this frame and is looking for eggs – which are a sure sign that the queen has been there in the past few days and generally, if you find eggs, you can be sure that the colony is queen right without needing to find the queen.

Eggs are very tiny (about the size of the eye of a needle) so hard to see – I have to be wearing my reading glasses, and need good light! The mesh of the Veil does not help either!

You can see that the brood under the bottom bar on this frame is different from the brood above, This is “Drone” brood. - drones of course are the male bees, and they are a bit bigger than the workers, so need bigger cells to develop in. When capped, they have “domed” cappings, and are very distinctive.

Question: what do drones do? And what happens to them in the autumn? Why is Drone Brood useful?

We wanted to find the Queen – of course – she had been marked and clipped, and so was relatively easy to find.

Question – why would you mark, and clip the queen??

Is it significant that the queen is marked with green paint?

And this is why the queen is hard to find; she’s right in the centre here, but other bees are on top of her! You can just see the green mark, but what is usefully shown is that her abdomen (back end) is much longer and differently marked than the other bees. This is what I look for when looking for an unmarked queen.

Since we’d not been able to find eggs, and wanted to, we tried using a small torch to help find them – a magnifying glass would have been useful too!

We went right through the “brood” are of the hive, and the last frame was this one; there’s no brood here, but the bees are very organised, and are using it to store pollen, nectar and honey, very close to the brood nest where they’ll need it.

Pollen comes in many different colours, distinctive to the flowers the bees have collected it from. Here’s a detail so you can more easily see the different pollen colours.

Question: Honey comb is made from bee’s wax – but where does the bee’s wax come from?

Job done, and the hive is carefully put together. This roof is pitched so its put on this way round so the rain is shed to the sides, not on the entrance and “alighting board”.

Inspection over, a chat …. lots of questions!

• What about Varroa, and varroa treatment. And other disease

• What can you do with the wax- why is wax valuable and not to be wasted

• How do you tell the difference between the queen, drones and workers

• When do we get the honey harvest (and why)

• When do we put the second super on?

So we ‘ll try to answer those in future blogs, and if you've other questions, then pose them in the OBKA Beekeeping  Q&A section and we’ll do our best to answer!

This is the Mentor’s side of the story, Henrietta will write it up from the “Victim’s” point of view, and it will be published in Kidlington News Online https://kidlingtonnews.org/ !

Andy Pedley

Swarm Collection – Saturday 2nd May 2020

I have been a member of OBKA since 2018 and keeping bees for 12 months. My one colony survived winter and looked very strong when I conducted my first inspection at the beginning of April. A great feeling of pride that I had got through my first big challenge of beekeeping. During my visit on 16th April I spotted a Queen cell, plenty of capped brood and a large number of drone cells and stores.

I made the decision to perform a split, (an operation to divide the colony leaving the Queen cells in the new half) and transferred the split into a Nuc box. During a brief inspection on 23 April I noticed the increase in the colony had been quite dramatic, I transferred the colony into a Brood box.

On Saturday 2nd May I attended my hives with a view to only conducting an inspection of the Hive with the original Queen. That hive was all fine, everything was as expected -plenty of stores, worker brood and drone cells and evidence of fresh eggs. During that inspection I noticed a lot of flying Bees around the area of my split colony.

I soon realised I was observing a swarm, presumably from that split colony. Fortunately, after a short period of time they decided to land on a nearby hedge. Once they appeared to calm down and cluster, I moved closer to get a better view.

With assistance of my son who was with me ( his first time of wanting to come with me to check the bees – lockdown for you !) we were able to capture the swarm safely into a Nuc travel box. Once most (almost all) were safely inside the Nuc box I sealed the entrance for 24 hours. I placed the Nuc box with my other Hives, in the location where I would eventually transfer them into the empty Hive.

I returned the following day and was able to transfer the colony into a brood box. I placed a rapid feeder (1:1) with homemade sugar syrup above the brood box; because they were my own bees I didn't need to isolate them and treat for varroa but was able to feed them straight away to encourage comb building.

In the space of two weeks I have gone from one strong Hive to three potentially strong colonies. I am looking forward to checking the colonies and watching them thrive. I have enjoyed the experience of splitting the colony and dealing with the swarm. I am sure I have made mistakes along the way but I will learn from them, such as leaving too many Queen celIs in the split.,With just one Queen cell they should not swarm but she may not be successful mated whilst with more than one Queen cell you may have a swarm with a Virgin Queen. As you can see in the first picture two swarms so perhaps two Queens left at the same time but in reuniting them the Queens will sort themselves out. It has been a great start to the season, I will be happy to provide an update as to how I get on throughout the summer.

Stay safe and well.

For more information on putting a swarm in a Nuc see this video from Stuart at the Norfolk Honey Company: https://youtu.be/nqVeNpC0aVY

Carl Goodman

This article is not about swarm prevention or swarm control: that`s a whole different subject. This blog will be about what happens after they have swarmed.

Collecting swarms are good way of building up your stock, but you must register with BBKA to get your public liability insurance . I also would recommend you have experience handling bees before attempting to collect a bee swarm. A large swarm can contain 30,000+ bees with a weight off over 10lbs.

When you receive the call, try to make sure from the caller that they are honey bees and not bumble or solitary bees. This is a common mistake among the general public. Ask about the position and height off the ground of the swarm and reassure the caller.  Always explain to the caller what you plan to do, and that it may involve cutting tree branches, for example. You will need their permission to enter their property, and to cut back plants or trees.

Bear in mind bees don’t read the bee manuals. The chances of your swarm being located in the middle of a conveniently low-ish hanging branch, (as illustrations like to show,) is slim, and no two swarms are the same. Usually they will first settle fairly close to the hive-nest and wait for the queen to arrive. They can settle on almost anything and any height during this period while scouts are looking for some where to live ...this can take minutes or days. When enough bees have decide that they like a spot they move towards it in a series of short hops where they wait for the queen to rest until they arrive at their new home.

(If at this point they have entered a tree cavity, for example, you can sometimes drive them out by putting heavy smoke into the entrance.)

If you catch them resting, place the sheet under the swarm. If they are low down and on bush or tree place the swarm box underneath. Give the branch a sharp shake and the most of the bees will drop into the box. Place the box on the sheet and put the lid on. If you have got the queen in the box the rest will follow. On my swarm box there are 2 entrances when the vast majority have gone in I close the main entrance. (The second entrance has a rhombus bee escape.) it also has several holes covered with varroa flooring mesh for ventilation.

It will take about 2 hours for the bees inside to work out how get out. This method is good for getting a quick capture.
Swarms which are located on other objects, such as garden tables can be brushed into the box or if they are on the ground, place the box next to them and they should walk in.

Always cover the swarm box with a sheet to keep it cool and spray water in the air vents if it is very hot. I have caught swarms at dusk or later without a bee taking to the air - they are always very quick. One in particular I remember was on a weeping willow branch which I cut and lowered into the box, branch and all: not one bee flew up. The capture took one minute, and I got home in time for tea.

I love to walk the bees into the hive by putting a plank of wood up to the hive entrance. Cover the board with the sheet. If you have moved the bees gently they should be hanging inside the lid of the box.

Lift gently and shake them onto the ramp, placing a few bees by the entrance. You can then watch them walk up into the entrance. If you didn’t manage to get the queen, keep a careful eye out for her now. Remember she will be a lot smaller then when she is laying eggs. If you spot her now, it’s quite a good idea to put her in a queen catcher and place it between two frames. (Be sure to free her 2 days later when they have settled in). This is just in case they decide they don’t like their new home and take off again! An alternative to this is to put a queen excluder between the floor and brood box to keep the queen in, and after 2 days put back between the brood box and supers (making sure she is not on the supers.)

After a week I give them a feed of syrup and check for any signs of pest and disease. DON’T feed until they have used up the food in their stomachs, this minimises the risk of them bringing disease from their old hive.

This is a list of the tools I carry in my car for catching a swarm.

• Catching box – I made it large enough to take 6 standard frames. As I previously mentioned it has 2 entrances and 4 air holes. It’s large enough to catch awkward swarms very quickly with no bees flying from the box.
• Straw skep. This is a tightly woven woven upside-down basket- the traditional vessel for catching a swarm. Open at one end, so needs to be covered with a sheet.
• Old bed sheet. - placed on the ground under the swarm it helps stops bees getting lost and it’s easier to spot the queen
• Queen catcher- if you spot the queen and can catch her and place her in the swarm box, the others will follow.
• Secateurs and small saw- you may need to prune branches close to the swarm for access, or even remove the branch they are on.
• Bee brush or large (gooose/swan) feather. To gently remove bees.
• Thin rope - for shaking branches at any height.
• Water sprayer – to stop the bees flying and keeping the bees in the swarm box cool.
• Swarm catcher - made from a old bed sheet and gazebo poles which allows me to reach about 20` (much higher and it gets unstable.) I can knock bees into the swarm catcher and then tip them into the swarm box or onto a sheet and let them walk in. This method does put bees in the air!

Remember to always work safely and think of the property and residents. You may well also have an audience who will watch in amazement! Keep your feet on terra firma - ladders and step ladders are unsafe.

One word of warning. While swarming bees are generally docile, because they have gorged prior to leaving the hive, they still can and may sting. Bee gentle!

Peter Hawkins

Sunny, warm, (low 20s) still.

Purpose of inspectio: To remove brace comb, put in QE, repair frame lug, check feed, check for bias and queen cells.

This hive is home to the nucleus which arrived 10 days ago. I did a VERY quick check of just a couple of frames after 6 days, to check that the queen was present and laying, but not a full inspection, so this is the first.

When I topped up the rapid feeder 2 days ago, I noticed that the bees have built brace comb up through crown board and up the side of the rapid feeder.

I didn’t put in a QE when hiving them, as there are no supers on, but this was probably a mistake so I decided to put one on and remove what they’d built- hopefully this will encourage them to draw comb in a more useful place! What a waste of lovely fresh comb on top of the crown board!

When I removed the crown board, there were bees on on all 10 frames, which is good news. They have 2/3rds drawn both sides of the 2 frames on either side of the nuc frames, and begun on one side of outside frames. I also spotted eggs on the newly drawn frames, which is great: the queen is extending her laying into the new space. Queen seen on one of the nuc frames. Lots of stored nectar and pollen, including some dark red, which I believe at this time of year is likely to be dandelion.

There were a few drones, but no play cups or queen cells.

When I hived the nuc, I noticed that a lug on one of the frames was broken, and on moving it on the last inspection, the whole lug broke off. I left it as it was at the time, as I didn’t have anything to repair it with, and didn’t want to leave the hive open while I went in search of something to bodge it with. This time I was prepared, and after making sure I knew where the queen was, I removed the frame and gently screwed in a screw to hold it. It’s an old, dark frame, so I will swap it out ASAP, but while the colony is building up and there is brood on it, I want it in the hive. It’s definitely a bodge, but it’s holding!

They have used all the feed, so I will top up later when they’ve settled down after the inspection. With a rapid feeder, I just need to remove the roof and the lid of the feeder, so they’ll hardly know I’m there.

Just one more job while I have my bee suit on: to cut the grass around the hives with shears. I’m not going near them with the strimmer or the lawnmower!

Alison Rosby

April 16.

The Sun is out with a light breeze and the bees are flying well. Taking time to watch the hive entrance for a moment, I give it a light smoke. (With good-tempered bees it is hardly needed, but I find it polite to ‘knock at the door’, so to speak.) Plenty of pollen is going in and I can see the heavily laden bees trying to make the alighting board and not always adjusting their flight in time! The front of the hive is free from bee poo which, if in any quantity, can be an indication of trouble. On the paving slab around the hive are a few corpses of worn-out worker bees who have done their best for the colony: this is a sight you do not see if your bee hives are on grass. The best sight to watch at the hive entrance is lots of bees taking their orientation flight. They fly facing the hive, zigzagging across the hive entrance and slowly moving further away.

The smoke by now will have circulated within the hive: it take less than a couple of minutes for the bees to fill their honey stomachs and any alarm pheromones released when you open up the hive will be masked by the smoke.

The roof is lifted off and turned upside down on the ground. As I have some supers on, the crown board is just loosened but not removed. Next, I place the hive tool into the corner between supers and gently lever the supers apart. Once free, I drift a little more smoke between the supers before lifting them off and placing across the upturned roof. The crown board is then taken off and placed on top of the second super which is still on the hive and the process repeated to expose the Queen Excluder.

Two things to bear in mind: you want the supers exposed as little as possible so as not to attract robbing, wasps, etc, and smoked honey will not taste good and you won’t get repeat customers!

I give a couple of puffs over the QX to get the bees down onto the brood box ( if the bees are in the box they are not flying around bothering you). The QX is levered off, (a good tip is to twist slightly as you lift.) I check the QX for the Queen, then place it edge down with the inner facing side facing the hive, just in case I missed seeing the Queen.

With the dummy board removed and checked for the Queen I place it on the other side of the hive.

So what am I looking for?

H. Home. (space)
I. Increase
V. Varroa (disease)
E. Eggs
S. Stores

Have the bees enough room, are they increasing, are they healthy, are there eggs and larvae, do they have enough stores if the weather changes?

The first couple of frames were stores with plenty of pollen. The brood nest started next, with a just few capped cells near the middle and larvae around. As I check further in, the frames became full of brood with a small arc of pollen and Honey at the top. Where the brood comb had become damaged over time, the bees took the opportunity to adjust the cell size to take drone brood, a good sign the colony is progressing and a sign that they are getting in to a position to swarm later on. A few play cups were to be seen waiting for the Queen to lay in them and start a Queen cell, but after checking them all and finding no egg inside, I just continued to check through the rest of the frames. I then reassembled the hive and made a few notes as a reminder. (Hive notes are an important habit to acquire while everything is fresh in your mind.) This colony could be in a position to swarm in a few weeks once the the drone brood has emerged and matured.

By the time this appears on the blog I will have already completed my first swam control of the year on my largest colony.

David Lord