May Hive Inspection at Training Apiary.

Today as part of my beekeeping class we had a visit to local apiary.  Our instructor showed us how to do an artificial swarm and we moved 2 nucs into standard hives as well as normal May inspections.  For the artificial swarm we moved the old Queen into a new box and put it in the old position.  The idea being the flying bees will return the same position and rejoin the old Queen in the new hive and they will think they have swarmed as there is no brood and a new nest. The initial hive is moved to a new position with the brood and nurse bees and any queen cells that have been started.  The nurse bees will recognise that they no longer have a Queen and will begin feeding a couple of newly hatched eggs with royal jelly to create new Queens. A couple of new Queens may hatch but the first Queen out will kill the others...there can only be one Queen Bee per hive.  

 

The above is a nuc of bees ready for a bigger a home. The nuc is a result of previous artificial swarm, on inspection of the nuc there was a new Queen and fresh brood so the artificial swarm had been successful so a brand new colony of bees had been created and needed room for expansion. 

So the frames were moved across, lock stock and barrel, and the brood box was finished off by adding empty frames of foundation. 

On next inspection, if the busy bees have worked on these empty frames, and filled them with honey and brood, a super can be added on top. 

The bees had been very busy and there were 5 supers of honey from the 7 hives loaded into the back of his our instructors van.  There is a rape field nearby so there has been lots available for them.  The problem with rural bees is that they are only as productive as the local crop will supply, so these bees have had the bee equivalent of Macdonalds for the last month in the form of a fast food field of Rape.  Once this is harvested, they may run short of supplies.

I took the pic above because of a drone that was milling among the working girls, one of my fellow classmates referred to him as a dumper truck which seemed a very appropriate description of a drone.  Cant spot him now though! 

Above is a close up of some brood comb.  The working girl cells are covered by a small mound, the cover on the drones cells are more pronounced and the Queen babies have a hanging cup.  When you inspect the brood you are looking for eggs or larvae to show that your current Queen is being productive.  If there are a lot of drone cells, it may mean that she is failing and has run out of sperm and can no longer fertilize the eggs that produce worker bees.  Also you are looking for Queen cells which could either imply that she is failing, and the workers are looking to superceed her, or that the colony is large enough to consider swarming and is creating a new Queen to take over once the old Queen has left the building. 

I had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, I love being among the bees, and it was very informative.  Our instructor is very good, he has a wealth of knowledge and is willing to share.  And as you can see from above and below the neighbours were completely un-phased by the buzzy, buzzy bees.