Beekeeping Course 2016

We ran a Beginners Beekeeping Course here on the weekend of 16th - 17th April with Phil Chandler as tutor. It was fully booked and very successful. The weather was a little cold on the Saturday and we were unable to look in the hives. It was a bit warmer on the Sunday and we looked in the Dolphin hive, by far our biggest colony. There was both worker and drone brood and we added 2 new bars.
We also looked into the Paddies hive. They had worker brood and seemed to be building up well. There has been a mouse sleeping on top of the bars but hadn't got into the main body of the hive. There was also still some evidence of wax moth damage but the bees seem to be coping with it. This colony has done well after becoming queen-less last summer and being re queened in early July 2015.
Unfortunately the photos are not very good as the camera was set wrongly at too low a definition.

Looking at an empty Top Bar Hive

Taking a look at The Apiary

Phil teaching in The Village Hall

Lunch

New Brood

Checked all 3 hives again yesterday and decided to change to feeding sugar syrup, if needed, rather than fondant. They were all out foraging in the warm sunny weather.
The Paddies had almost finished the fondant, so we moved the feeder board back and put in the syrup feeder with 2 jars of 1:1 syrup. In the process we saw that they had some capped worker brood which is great. There was less evidence of wax moth damage, so hopefully they have dealt with it themselves. There had however been a mouse in the roof space as the insulation mat (old bath mat) had been chewed.
The Posties had completely finished their fondant, so we removed the feeder board and gave them the same amount of syrup. There was some evidence of the presence of wax moths so we need to keep an eye on that.
The Dolphins are the biggest colony but hadn't finished the fondant. This is probably because they had the most of their own stores left. There was no evidence of wax moths.
Quite pleased overall that they have all got through the winter safely.

A long mild damp winter

At last there is a little bit of sunshine after a long, rather mild and very wet winter. We suspect the Queens only stopped laying for a very short time, if at all. We started feeding all 3 hives just after New Year with Candipolline, as we were worried they might have run out of pollen, as well as honey. We are now giving them a mixture of Candipolline and plain fondant. Checked them today and they have almost finished it again so we will check again in a few days and probably give them one last lot. They have been out flying more recently and bringing in snowdrop pollen and nectar.
There was evidence of wax moth damage in the Paddies hive which we will need to keep an eye on. We changed their insulating bath mat, as it had pupae on.

Our candy board type invention for feeding candipolline/fondant

It seems to work very well

The bees enjoyed the lovely Indian Summer

We have had a lovely Indian Summer for the past couple of weeks and the bees have all loved it. They have been out flying most days, gathering in supplies to see them through the winter. We have had reported sightings all over the village, including people seeing them all over ivy flowers around a mile away.
We are trying out a new product for winter feeding called Canipolline Gold. It's a fondant with pollen added and has had good reports. The Posties have loads of supplies and we think they should have enough left over in the Spring for us to harvest some honey, so we are not feeding them. However we are erring on the side of caution with The Paddies and The Dolphins. The Paddies are doing well but are still a small colony and might run out of supplies. The Dolphins are a very large colony with quite a lot of supplies, but could run out if we are not careful.
Very happy with our three lovely colonies.

Three good colonies going into the winter

We moved The Posties into their new hive today and were so pleased to find 4 good bars of capped brood and larvae. Also a lot of honey, plenty to last them over the winter. Eco floor material moved, topped up and watered well and plenty of insulation put on top of the bars. No need to disturb them again before the Spring now.
Had a look in The Meadow Hangers and they are definitely dying out, which is what we thought.
We are going into the winter with three good colonies though and are happy with that.

Capped brood with honey at the top

The same on this one

Some moving on and some dying out

On Thursday 27th August we moved The Pines into a nucleus box and on Saturday 29th Jim came to pick them up and drive them home to Herefordshire. They had 4 good combs of brood and some supplies. They are now established in the new hive that Jim made a couple of years ago in our garage, before he moved.
We moved the Meadow Hangers into the empty Barton Hive and found that they are definitely dying out, unfortunately and have laying workers. We decided not to ditch them, but to just let them live out their days in their home.
On 1st September we moved The Dolphins into the vacated 4' hive. We found they had lots of brood and stores. We topped up the eco floor and watered it. We are hoping they are all set up for winter now.
We're still a little unsure about the Posties. Mick has now completed the new 4' hive and we will move them in there this week and check how they are doing.

Some good news and some bad news!

We checked all of the colonies on 18th August and the bad news is that The Meadows were clearly queenless with very few bees, no brood and hardly any stores. We think they had been being robbed. We then checked The Hangers On who were faring a little better but also had no good brood. There was some and possibly some attempts at making a supersedure queen. We decided to combine the two colonies and rename them The Meadow Hangers. We put them all into the 4' hive with newspaper in between and fed them. We fear they may well die out, but it's too late in the season to give them a chance to make a new queen now.
We then checked all the other 4 colonies.
Now for the good news!
The Paddies are doing great with lots of brood and stores and we saw the lovely black queen.
The Pines had built lots of comb, had good brood, stores and we saw the queen. As we now had the nucleus box free we decided to move them in there at the next opportunity for Jim to transport them to Herefordshire.
The Posties had masses of bees and loads of capped honey and pollen. However we didn't see the queen and there was no brood. It's possible they had a new queen emerge around 16 - 18 days ago if it was that The Pines came from there, so we decided to leave them alone until Mick has made a new hive for them. We do need to move them out of theirs' before the winter, as it needs some work doing on it. It would be too late in the season to do much about a queenless situation anyway and hard to check if that were the case. They were certainly behaving normally and there was no sign of laying workers, so we are fairly confident there is a queen who just hasn't started laying yet.
The Dolphins are still fine with lots of brood and stores. However we decided to give them one of The Posties combs of honey too as they have so much.