BeeHive

Gardening to 'grow your own food' from square foot to half an acre !!
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Citrine
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Re: BeeHive

Post by Citrine »

Diary 19
20/09/2008

Well, its sad news, im afraid. We lost the Hawiian colony.

After speaking with Mentor, he says it was a weak colony, and wouldnt have survived winter. It was the Apiguard treatment that did it, after all, it is a poison.

Feeling very sad and down in the dumps, and makes me wonder whether its worth putting the poor things through 'treatment'.

Number 20 - Final one!
Well, its another sad one, this entry.
Hubby been to out apiary to check hives after the last few days awful weather - we've lost 3 hives out of six. Drowned in over thrown hives.
Am gutted and disheartened.

Feeling increasingly 'removed' from the bees - due to work, Hubby has been visiting them more often than not without me in tow - hoping in the spring, to schedule my days/evenings better to get to spend time with them - thats if we have any left of course!
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shamrock
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Re: BeeHive

Post by shamrock »

I would love to keep bee but my partner wont allow.as she thinks they will just course trouble with the dogs and nabs bt can l keep them and still nt get nagged at?
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Citrine
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Re: BeeHive

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You dont have to keep them in your own garden. If you can find an 'out' apiary - thats somewhere away from home where you keep bees - then maybe thats a solution.
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Citrine
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Re: BeeHive

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Fed the Bee's on Sunday - some of the hives which are in sunny positions had Bees flying in and out. Very pleased to see that, takes a load off of my mind!

Put fondant on most of them - although they didnt feel 'light' when we 'Hefted the Hive', thought it would be best, so if they do run out of stores, they have some yummy candy to eat!

Will be going to Howletts sometime soon, to check on the 'wild colony' we have there in an old tree trunk. Not completey confident that they will make it through winter, they were such a small cluster.....fingers, eyes crossed that they do!

So far this year, we lost about 5 colonies - this has been due to the very severe weather, because we didnt lose them until the snowy episodes we've had.
***********************************************************
Saturday was a really warm spring day and ideal for our Beehaus taster course of 6 new beekeepers. We opened one of colonies in the home apairy and found that the queen has been really busy with nine frames of brood!The remainder of the colonies were inspected after the group had left and all in good shape. Gave a spring clean, with new floors, brood boxes, crown boards and roofs. We are starting off our queen rearing this weekend as the colonies are producing drones and seem to have a few about so the bees seem to know the weather is improving - even if we don't!
************************************************************
On friday, I discovered that one of the fences had fallen onto 2 hives, and knocked them over completely.
I scrambled into a BeeSuit, and righted them again - Bees werent too impressed with this, lots of them came flying out, to see what the earthquake was. After a few minutes, all appeared calm....cant wait to do the first inspection of the year, to see if her majesty is laying
*********************************************************
Had a fabulously sunny weekend! Got the bees out, had a quick inspection of them. One lot had to be moved from the allotment they were on, and moved back to our garden - they arent building up like they should, we think that being in constant shade and getting no warmth from the sun isnt helping. A shed was erected after the hive was put on the plot, so its only become apparent more recently.
Courses are going well - or at least, appear to be. The dog got himself in disgrace though, he rifled through the students bags, and dragged the chocolate bars across the floor whilst we were at the hives! He also threw the cake on the floor. He didnt eat any though. (Does that say something about my baking abilities??)
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Citrine
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Re: BeeHive

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Saturday was a really warm spring day and ideal for our Beehaus taster course of 6 new beekeepers. We opened one of colonies in the home apairy and found that the queen has been really busy with nine frames of brood!The remainder of the colonies were inspected after the group had left and all in good shape. Gave a spring clean, with new floors, brood boxes, crown boards and roofs. We are starting off our queen rearing this weekend as the colonies are producing drones and seem to have a few about so the bees seem to know the weather is improving - even if we don't!
**********************************************************
Well, well well!!
Had a brilliant course over the weekend - as you probably know by now, Ma Larkin came along. It was fab to meet her - she is a lovely, beautiful person. Of course, she got proposed to in my garden, and I hope she had a perfect day!

We did some Queen Raising on the Sunday, one of our colonies is doing SO well (...touches wood whilst typing!), and there appear to be plenty of Drones around too.
The larvae are very small, and we have to wear magnifying glasses and a LCD head torch to move them from the frame into the prepared cups. We have to be careful not to flip them over, or the nurse bees will reject them and wont feed them Royal Jelly.

Will wait with baited breath to see if any of our grafted larvae are succesful!
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p.penn
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Re: BeeHive

Post by p.penn »

Gosh, that sounds really intricate Citrine...I have never heard of Queen raising before!

It must have been so lovely having Ma's propsal take place in your garden! So romantic >mmm<
Helen xx

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Re: BeeHive

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How's it going?
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Citrine
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Re: BeeHive

Post by Citrine »

Fantstically thanks!

We've been doing quite a bit of Queen Raising, and have a fair few Nucs for sale this year - we fed the bees constantly throughout the winter, and had minimal losses, so its all good!

)t'
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p.penn
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Re: BeeHive

Post by p.penn »

Hello Citrine - good to hear all is going well! {hug}
Helen xx

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Orfy
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Re: BeeHive

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Citrine wrote:Fantstically thanks!

We've been doing quite a bit of Queen Raising, and have a fair few Nucs for sale this year

)t'



Can you explain more. I may be in the market soon.
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Citrine
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Re: BeeHive

Post by Citrine »

:-D

Been a while since this has been updated - needless to say, we've about 24 hives of differing sorts, from a Top Bar Hive through to Langstroth and others in between!

Last year we didnt do courses, as Hubby was diagnosed with a rare form of Motor Neurone Disease.

This year, we are concentrating on the colonies themselves, and doing more 1-2-1 tuition and fewer groups.

Will get this 'Diary' up and running again, once we crack the colonies open for their first inspections in a couple of weeks time :)
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Re: BeeHive

Post by manda »

Hi Citrine ...good to see you've popped in...sorry tohear about your husband..hope things are as stable as they can be for him {hug}

Look forward to hearing about the hives....we're still thinking about it ....would like to build somewhere else to live (in the hopefully not too distant future) so thinking we'd hold off till then but would love to read about it.
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Re: BeeHive

Post by Mo »

I'd forgotten about this thread. Plenty to re-read.

Sorry to hear about OH - hope things go as well as possible.
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Re: BeeHive

Post by Bridgets Mum »

Excited to find this thread. I'm hoping to become a new beek (beekeeper). My plan is to keep them for their pollination prowess rather than as mega honey producers but I'm hoping for some excess honey in a year or two provided all goes well. I've been on two courses so far and have joined a bee group. A winter of hive making beckons!
Excited!
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