Four Happy Hives

Today's statistics:

• Beehives opened: 4
• Brood frames inspected: 44
• Gloves worn: 0
• Stings received: 0
• Surprises: 2

I've been in the habit of wearing those disposable thin latex gloves when I'm working in the beehives. They are easy to change between hives and they keep the propolis off your fingers. But the box ran out the other day without my having noticed we were getting low, so I'm gloveless now. It went fine today inspecting the hives without gloves. When you get bees all over your hands it does tickle! But it's also a little easier to feel when there's a bee in the way when picking something up or putting it down, so it could be an improvement.

Cedar Hive

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These bees are a lovely colony. They smell like a summer meadow. And they do not seem inclined to swarm, so they are the sole single-storey hive left in the apiary.

In this hive came my first surprise - a pollen forager carrying blue pollen. Blue. A light, greeny blue. That's not a shade I could find on my pollen chart. Maybe I should've got the full pollen reference book instead of the handy little flip card version, like they tried to persuade me to at the book stall.

Disc Hive

A new queen should be emerging very soon in the bottom box of the Disc Hive. Meanwhile, all seems well in the top box. I think I did indeed get there in the nick of time when I split them last weekend, causing them to cancel their swarming plans at the last minute.

Copper Hive

This hive is so tall that I had to stand on a chair to access the top brood box! There are sealed queen cells, from which new queens should be ready to emerge next weekend. Meanwhile I hope Queen Dawn is building up a new brood nest in the bottom box. There's no easy way to have a look, but there's no particular reason to either, so I shall leave her to get on with it.

Pond Hive

The Pond Hive contained the second surprise. You remember that I thought this colony must have swarmed on Easter Sunday, because on Easter Monday I found it packed with sealed queen cells. Well, there hasn't been enough time for the hive to have a new laying queen already, and yet there were eggs and young larvae in the top brood box. The explanation? Queen Felicity! It seems she hadn't yet swarmed after all. She must have been on the point of departure when I split them, just like the Disc Hive.

So I think I can add to my statistics:

• Swarms issued so far this year: 0

Thank you, my wonderful, agreeable bees!

Listening

It's 7 degrees Celcius (45 F) outside, and even though we've had some sunshine there haven't been many bees flying from the hives today. It's too cold and anyway there's very little forage available at this time of year. So all is quiet. I went out on to the gin terrace and put a stethoscope to the wall of the Disc Hive. I listened. At once I became aware of how noisy it actually is round here - a light aircraft was passing overhead, traffic was rumbling, and then for good measure a train went past. The bees were probably huddled inside trying to get some peace.

I couldn't hear anything that sounded like inner hive noise. I tried knocking on the hive wall to see if that would ruffle the bees into making a sound. But at that point another train went past. And the aircraft was still puttering on. Things were the same when I tried the Cedar Hive.

So I went out into the garden. I put the stethoscope against the front of the Copper Hive brood box, and knocked. There was an answer! A susurrus rose and fell. I went to the Pond Hive and tried the same - another answering susurrus!

Feeling encouraged, and having got my ear in, I returned to the Disc Hive and Cedar Hive and retried. Yes - both answered.

It's a quiet sound, a bit like a gust of wind stirring the twigs at the top of a tree. I guess it's a rustle of wings as the bees react to the disturbance. I will leave them in peace now. I am waiting for the first day when it is warm enough to open the hives, when I will revert the hives to their "summer configuration" (that is, a super above the brood box rather than vice versa) and at the same time I will insulate the rooves. They have insulation in spring, rather than in winter, because it is in spring that we get the big temperature fluctuations - warm days and frosty nights - and the bees must keep warm enough during the night to cover their growing brood. If they have to huddle back into their winter clusters, the brood will become chilled and die. On the other hand clustering in winter is their way of conserving energy and they need less honey to get through the cold months that way, so I don't insulate the hives for the onset of winter.

Preparing for Spring

A bright January day and the buzz is back.

Bees are active in all the hives, even Pond Hive which is always the last to get up in the morning.

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Cedar Hive

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Copper Hive and Pond Hive

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Copper Hive

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Disc Hive and Cedar Hive on Gin Terrace

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Pond Hive

The occasional nice bright day like this is good for letting the bees get out to stretch their wings on cleansing flights. They may even be planning for spring already. Although the spring nectar and pollen are many weeks off yet, perhaps the queens are starting to lay now in order to build up worker numbers in time for the harvest.

The beekeeper had better start preparing for spring too. I want to rub the outsides of the hives with linseed oil for weatherproofing, replace Pond Hive's landing board and swap Cedar Hive on to a stand with taller legs. All of which I'd prefer to do on a cold, gloomy day when the bees are huddled inside, rather than when they are zooming curiously about. I'm sure that chance will come...we have many more weeks of winter to go. But today is a reminder that spring is on the way.

The Smith Bees Move House

There are a lot of confused bees flying around the gin terrace looking for their hive, which isn't where they left it.

The Smith beehive has served us well, but it has a design flaw - there is too much surface contact between some of the parts, which increases the risk of crushing bees between moving parts and prompts the bees to apply large amounts of propolis to seal the surfaces together. I'm taking the Smith Hive out of service, and will keep it in reserve as a spare.

So today I moved the Smith colony to the (previously empty) Cedar Hive, in an adjacent position. In fact it's not quite the full Cedar Hive yet, but the bottom of the Cedar Hive combined with the top of the Smith Hive, like this:

The idea is this:

• The brood, with the majority of house bees, some flying bees and hopefully the queen are now in the Cedar brood box;
• They have a part-filled super above them, which they can continue to fill with honey in preparation for Winter;
• Above that is the clearer board, which acts as a valve, allowing bees downwards but not upwards;
• Bees from the Smith Hive sections above the clearer board will move overnight into the Cedar hive sections below the clearer board;
• If Queen Eve was on the inside wall of the brood box when I removed the frames (lots of bees were), she will travel down overnight and end up in the Cedar super (ok this is not ideal, but better than losing her altogether);
• Most of the other bees from the Smith Hive that were on the walls will also move down through the clearer board overnight;
• Tomorrow the parts of the hive above the clearer board will have very few bees in, and I will take them off and replace them with the Cedar crownboard and Cedar roof. This includes a full super of honey, which can be taken for extraction.

Flying bees are oriented to the previous location of the Smith Hive, which isn't there any more. It's not far away, but nor is the Disc Hive:

I expect the flying bees to redistribute between the Cedar Hive and the Disc Hive. This will boost the numbers of the small colony in the Disc Hive...it may help that colony, at least I hope it will not harm them. One worker is Nasonov fanning (emitting a homing signal) at the entrance to the Cedar Hive, while there is no sign of this at the Disc Hive entrance...it may help the ex-Smith flying bees find their own colony.

Was the move a stingless operation? Not quite. In lifting the Smith brood box off its floor I trapped a bee between the inside of my knee and the outside wall of the brood box. Of course, she stung me.

I don't know yet whether this has been a successful move. I think it has, but there were probably mistakes I made. Hopefully I'll find out in due course what they were. I didn't see Queen Eve, though I didn't check every frame thoroughly, just looked over them briefly when transferring them across. More worrying is that I did not see eggs or young larvae either. I hope it is just a sign that the colony is shrinking rather than that the Queen is no longer in residence. It would be useful if they could fly a flag like Buckingham Palace does.