Topic: Bees and Beekeeping

[tonybloke]

I passed by my plot this morning, and there were masses of bees round a couple of the empty hives, so I thought the swarm was probably due. Sure enough, I went back after lunch, and they were in residence, having given my neighbour a fright as they went over.

good news Robert!
collected a decent sized swarm yesterday evening,  hived them this morning on my allotment.

[gp.girl]

Dad's hive made it though the winter, its a small colony which has loads of honey in it. Very docile bees, even the chap who moved them was surprised. Now out of the dustbin into a proper hive. Just have to decide wether or not to buy the hive or let the bee keeper move them.......

[Robert_Brenchley]

Depends whether you want to keep bees or not!

[gp.girl]

Depends whether you want to keep bees or not!

Having to balance want (no trouble there) with need, afford, justify, space.....oh bugger it will ask dad to keep them, so want them up the allotment but no animals allowed  >:(

[tonybloke]

Depends whether you want to keep bees or not!

Having to balance want (no trouble there) with need, afford, justify, space.....oh bugger it will ask dad to keep them, so want them up the allotment but no animals allowed  >:(

Bees ain't animals!
if you have the necessary insurance, ask your allotment secretary for permission?

[Robert_Brenchley]

Join the local Beekeepers' Association, if you aren't already a member, and that should get you insurance. I find it's usually best to keep them out of sight and say as little as possible. If you're on an open site, it's harder to make them invisible, but you never know till you ask. Sometimes people keep them inside a shed with a hole cut in the wall for access.

[Toadspawn]

How far will a swarm go to find a new home? As far as I know only one beekeeper lives within two miles of me (half a mile in fact) and his bees are all dark. However, a swarm took up residence in a spare hive yesterday at 1.15 and they all have a yellow stripe, so where did they come from ? It was probably a cast because it was certainly not a primev swarm.
Why do bees usually swarm between 1.00 and 2.00 in the afternoon? 
And today I was called out to get two swarms hanging very conveniently about three feet apart on a bush. I guess they were both second/third casts as they were only about as big as a pint jug so they went into the same box and hopefully the queens will fight it out and leave me with a half decent colony which should build up quite well by the end of the summer.
At least now I will have two new queens but the big problem is that I will have no idea how good they will be.

[Robert_Brenchley]

You won't know until you've had them for twelve months. Swarms can travel long distances, hanging in trees etc on the way, but I imagine they fly a fair distance in their initial search for a home. Natural colonies tend to be very well-spaced. Two miles seems quite plausible, especially given the present shortage of natural nest sites, with hollow trees being felled, and lofts sealed.

I doubt whether it's a cast this early in the season, since there hasn't been enough time for a colony to produce a prime swarm followed by a second. How many frames does it cover? They don't look much when they first move in, but as the queen starts to lay, they spread out and a swarm that occupies three frames when it moves in will probably end up covering six. If I'm right and it's a prime swarm, the queen will start to lay within a couple of days, while casts usually fly with virgins which can take three or four weeks.

[tonybloke]

there's been loads of swarms and casts here, bees don't need big numbers to have a cast, just need 2 queen cells left after the prime swarm for it to occur.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Those are really swarmy bees! I've only encountered the sort that swarm every time they have a cell once; I don't want to meet them again! Round here, it's not unusual to find two queens in a hive; sisters or mother and daughter.

[tonybloke]

I found 2 queens in a colony that had swarmed last week. It was a split from a colony that had swarmed, I left 3 cells to see what happened, result, swarm with 1st to hatch, leaving 2 unmated sisters to fight it out.

lesson, ignore the books, leave only 1 QC in future!!

I caught and hived the small swarm in a nuc box with a frame of stores (pollen + honey)

[Angel]

Tony, could you link me a good website to look up some information on bees please.

[Toadspawn]

Robert

The first swarm I heard about in this part of S E Wales was the end of April. I have caught and hived prime swarms and they have been at least the size of a football and weigh surprisingly heavy. These ones were sinificantly smaller and as I said two were only big enough to fit into a pint pot. Very small yes, but if the parent stock was allowed to swarm without control, every time a queen emerged from a swarm queen cell and there was more than one queen in a hive then a swarm would emerge no matter how big it was. Some colonies can swarm themseves to death. 
The occurrence of the original queen and a daughter queen in the same hive could be the result of supercedure.The two will live together for a while until the old queen is killed because she is not performing as the bees would like.
My approach is to try and remove every queen cell, particularly those around the edge of the frame and clustered togethee to prevent swarming and make a nuc if possible. I would leave a single queen cell in the centre of the frame because there is a good chance that it is a supercedure cell. 

[shirlton]

Tony, could you link me a good website to look up some information on bees please.

I would like to read up on bees too Tony if you know of a good site. We have 5 hives in an enclosure opposite our plot .I am so frightened of them when they swarm as they have done 4 times already this year  whilst we were working on our plot. Even more so since Tony has been stung. Perhaps if I knew more about them I wouldn't be so scared.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I always leave a colony with several cells, and I've never had secondary swarms as a result. Shows how much bees vary from one area to the next!

[tonybloke]

Tony, could you link me a good website to look up some information on bees please.

I would like to read up on bees too Tony if you know of a good site. We have 5 hives in an enclosure opposite our plot .I am so frightened of them when they swarm as they have done 4 times already this year  whilst we were working on our plot. Even more so since Tony has been stung. Perhaps if I knew more about them I wouldn't be so scared.

have a look on here
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk

[shirlton]

Thanks Tony

[Robert_Brenchley]

Someone needs to take a look at those hives, Shirlton; there's no need for it. They should be checked regularly at this time of year - I look through mine once a week - and if there are swarm cells developing, action should be taken. There's a possibility that swarms are moving in, rather than out; I get them moving into empty hives every year. Probably, however, it's bad beekeeping.

Traditional methods of swarm control don't always work, and not everyone's up on the good methods. It's easy to breed for bees which don't often swarm, though there's no such thing as a non-swarming bee, and this year is ideal for them weather-wise. Most beekeepers, unfortunately, know little or nothing about breeding. I think myself that the answer is beekeeper education.

I've put a suitably anonymised note of this in the next Birmingham Beekeepers' Newsletter, as an awful example of what shouldn't be happening!

[Hobbitlin]

I am one of the 3 beekeepers on the site to which you are referring, Robert. We are very attentive to the needs of the bees and do indeed check them every week. Julian Routh has inspected our bees and states they are very well cared for. As you stated, this year has been exceptionally suitable for swarming. Some of the swarms we have had on site, would appear to be bees from local hives that are looking for homes, rather than from our hives. We have 4 hives and a nuc which was an artificial swarm, which we are keeping as back up in case the new queen isn't mated properly, due to recent weather. All occurances of swarms being reported on site, were dealt with calmly and promptly and passed on to other local beekeepers through our BKA. If you feel there is anything more you can suggest, we would welcome this.

Although it's comendable that you are concerned for the welfare of the bees, putting it in your newsletter isn't particularly helpful without the full facts. I hope this goes some way towards filling in the gaps.

As you are local, perhaps you'd like to visit us to see our bees for yourself? You would be most welcome.

Lin  :)

[Robert_Brenchley]

Glad to hear from you! How many swarms have moved in? I know it's scary for the neighbours, but four, if that's correct, seems like an awful lot. Were they hanging in the bushes or moving into empty hives?