Bee Safari

What a busy day I have had.  Our Bee-keeping Associating had a FERA inspector visit the area and several members kindly allowed us all to pile in their apiary's and  look on, while the inspector explained what diseases he was looking for and gave us newbies some valuable instruction.  We went to 3 different apiaries, with one of our members supplying a scrummy lunch at the halfway point.  It was not an ideal day for opening up around 20 hives, it was a bit blowy and cold, so he had to work quick.

The FERA inspector was looking for European and American Foul brood, predominately, as they are  both notifiable diseases, but we also saw examples of chalk brood, sac brood and wax moth.  During his inspections he tested a couple of larvae, mainly for demonstration purposes.  The test is a bit like a pregnancy test, and luckily they both came out negative.

We also saw a bumble bee who was in the hive dipping her head into cells as if she was an invited guest for dinner. The honey bees were just ignoring her whilst she was quite happily robbing their hive. I guess there is a energy to loss ratio where the colony decides that a little loss of stores is acceptable to evicting the cheeky bumble.   I would love to have taken a pic but I left my SD card in my PC (I hear you on mass-  "Numpty") so the only pics I have are what I could fit on my camera's internal memory.  Another association member took a pic, and I am hoping he will share. 

Update:  And he did, many thanks SP. Apparently its not every day you see a Bumble as at home in a honey bee hive as this one was. 

Drone culling as a Varroa mite control 

Above is a picture of a frame that has foundation only on the top half.  The idea being is that the gap on the bottom half is filled, by the bees, with 'drone cone' to allow a culling with this special fork.  The Varroa mites prefer to lay their eggs in drone cells as they have a longer larvae period. The larvae is inspected on the comb and checked for mites.  If the mites were a real issue, a choice could be made to cull more drones, and the mites along with them.  Collateral damage, the bee world is a cruel world. In this instance, there were none..which is very good.

Besides benefiting from the information given be experienced bee-keepers, it was great to chat again to other new bee-keepers to hear of their experiences. I have been boring my family with my single-mindedness, so it was nice to talk bees without apologising when I see the eye roll!

I have been desperately trying not to over-dabble with my bees and allow them to settle in, with the assumption that my new, weak colony will concentrate on building up before they considered splitting and swarming.  But...one of my fellow new starters who gave a home to a swarm a month ago has just lost half of her bees through them swarming again. I shall be opening my hive tomorrow to check for Queen cells, as much as I want to bee keep in a natural way, for the benefit of bees, I am not ready to lose Queen Kylie just yet. Not sure I want to deliberately kill a Queen either, but it will have to be done, perhaps next year when my colony should be stronger I could consider an artificial swarm, but not this year.

Once again, thanks for reading, and please bear in mind, I am a learner, and I have started this blog as a record of my hive, a read for another new newbies who would like to take up bee-keeping, and primarily so that I can be put right by more experienced bee-keepers who can spot my mistakes. Happy to correct any errors spotted.