Norm's Bees, Naturally

2011-06-30T16:37:00.002+02:00

One Bee

2010-10-01T12:10:00.001+02:00

It has been a while since I last wrote on this blog and that is because there is not very much for me to write about. The six bait hives I set out in different locations were not successful in catching any swarms this last season and there seems to be a distinct lack of honeybees hereabouts. I don't attribute this to anything sinister, just the previous long hard winter which had snow from October 2009 until April 2010 with temperatures going down to minus 35 degrees celsius. I despaired at not seeing any honeybees at all until I saw activity of bees coming and going at one of my bait hives at a neighbors farm. Turns out they were robbing out some old crystalysed honey in the comb of the bait hive. Well at least they cleaned the comb up for me. What made it really bad was that I had not seen one honeybee all year in my garden, not one! Then one sunny day, I was admiring the peacock butterflies on my aster flowers when I spotted a ragged wing old worker foraging on the asters. That sight lifted my spirits and gives me hope for next season. My six bait hives will be waiting to go out again and I am confident of success next year.

Feral Honeybees

2010-07-05T16:22:00.002+02:00

I seem to be in a minority of one when it comes to my position on ferals. I am still at odds with all of the posters on the NBN forum at this thread.
Personally, I think if you take the view that all bees are 'wild' and beekeeping itself is not natural for them, and if you keep bees that have been produced by mans' design rather than what mother nature has allowed to evolve in their local climate and flora, then it becomes clear to me which is better to propagate from. Taking a feral colony with it's queen and hence it's genetics is for me a desireable tactic to breed from and allow to repopulate other feral niches. Most ferals are runaway swarms from beekeepers anyway, managed bees originating from who knows where. These bees may have been previoulsy treated with acaricides, anti-biotics etc. In other words bees propped up by pharmacauticals and genetically weak! Are these the bees we should be using or true feral stock that have been known to exist for a number of years untreated and obviously suited to the local environment. If we increase from these true ferals and allow them to swarm and take up these feral niches, we are not commiting a 'wildlife crime' as one poster put it but rather a service to honeybees in the long run. I honestly think that some people can not see past the issue of 'disturbing nature'. Nature has already been greatly disturbed by the fact that we are keeping the bees partly for our own ends. If we accept the fact that this is the reality of the situation then my proposed using of feral genetics to bolster the feral genetics as well as my own stocks is not only desirable but indeed worthy. Rant over!

Bait Hive Success

2010-06-17T20:05:00.002+02:00

For the first time this year, I have seen honeybees here in Sweden, and the really great news is they were going in and out of one of my bait hives!

For the second year runnning I have baited a swarm in a tiny old Svea 8 frame hive. It's about the same volume as a single warre box so not within the so called optimum volume for bait hives. I have had success for a few years with smaller volume bait hives so I think the theory is somewhat suspect. I will leave them where they are on my neighbors farm for the next 3 weeks without messing with them, if it's a cast, the virgin can get mated without me disturbing her.

Bait Hives & Leaving the NBN

2010-05-18T17:16:00.003+02:00

Today I put out my first bait hive at a neighbors farm a few miles away. I also prepared another which will be set out tomorrow at another neighbors farm. They were both single Svea hive boxes with eight frames, quite small as bait hives go, by volume that is, but one of these caught a swarm last year. The only lure I will be using is the bits of old comb that is still in the frames. My next batch of bait hives will be double warre boxes.
Some of you readers may have noticed that I am no longer the admin on the NBN forum. I have had three separate serious disagreements with three different beekeepers on there so I have come to the realization that the only common factor was me! I guess it is me that is out of harmony with the prevailing thinking. I cannot accept the dogma that is being espoused, dis-allowing certain items for discussion etc. It is my strong belief that you cannot tell someone how they must keep their bees. My way is that I want to show how I keep my bees and the reasons why I do it that way. Anyway, I wish them well and hope they get on better now without my input.

Two Swedish Deadouts

2010-04-12T17:31:00.002+02:00

Neither of my two hives in Sweden made it through the winter. The kenyan hive in the barn had a wood shelf collapse onto it knocking off the roof and the insulation. The follower board was away from the top bars and inside all the comb had been consumed by hungry rodents.The warre hive in the beehouse looks like it was submerged in the deep snow for too long. I have been told the snow was at least a metre deep in most places which would have covered the entrance. If this was for a short amount of time I don't think it would have been a problem.But the snow was around for months and the ventilation of the hive was reduced to virtually nothing. Lots of mouldy combs(pollen) and lots of honey that I was able to salvage.These bees had plenty of stores (honey not sugar) so they did not starve. It got down to minus 30 degrees but I think it was the damp condensation with no ventilation that killed this hive. Some lessons learned about winter in Sweden and time to start from scratch here so probably not many more posts to this blog for awhile.

Bee Eaters return & Thermo Bees

2010-04-04T19:54:00.004+02:00

Exactly one year ago today on this blog I reported the return of the bee eaters from their winter in South Africa. This evening, I heard them again. I always hear them first, their chiruping sounds are very distinctive. Sure enough they are back, circling over our log cabin and taking bees in flight. How incredible that they return on exactly the same day!

My friend on Facebook and the NBN forum, Gary Fuqua from Illenois in the USA recently had a thermography assessment done on his house. Whilst the guy was there taking thermal images, he got him to take a thermal image of one of his kenyan top bar hives. Gary has kindly allowed me to reproduce the image here. It was 20 degrees F outside the hive when this was taken. You can see the large red area of the winter cluster and the 3 red entrance holes. My conclusion was that it shows the entrance holes ventilating hot(warm & moist) air out. The thermal cycle created by the cluster drives the ventilation of the hive. My theory is that if the cluster of bees dwindled to a less than 'critical mass', the thermal cycle would slow down or stop and hence the ventilation would also stop. Maybe this is this the reason that some beekeepers are seeing mould in their hives?

My Bees have company

2010-04-02T15:34:00.005+02:00

Photo taken from my porch.

click to enlarge

The other day a lorry turned up in the field opposite my house about 200m away. They unloaded 4 lines of Layens beehives, at a guess just over 100 hives. Seems my bees will have some company. Luckily there is a good deal of forage just now, lots of spring flowers. An enquiry found that they would be moved on in June. The Vipers Bugloss has begun, lavender and rosemary keep on flowering and lots of other flowers that I have no idea what they are called. I noticed their bees coming to my bee watering pots as that is in short supply around here. There is an open spring about a mile away so they will never go without water but my water is nearer. I console myself by thinking that any virgin queens I may get with caste's may be outcrossed and gain some hybrid vigour.

Modifications to my Perone Hive

2010-04-02T14:24:00.004+02:00

Further modifications to my Perone hive include fitting six British National top bars as 'spales' perpendicular to the combs. I nailed 3 to the top and 3 to the bottom of the intermediate brood box. This is to prevent any comb collapse during hot weather.

Here the spales are shown at 90 degrees to the comb above.

Hive complete but still no signs of swarms.

Making a Perone Box from Pallet Wood

2010-04-01T17:28:00.005+02:00

Someone on the forum mentioned that my 88 litre version of the Perone hive is too small and that it should be 100 litres plus. I have no more British National Boxes so I decided to make one to British National sizes. This ended up with internal dimensions of 42cm x 42cm x 19cm high, therefore a further 33+ litres. My Perone box will now be a staggering 123 litres, and that is without the supers!

I took all the slats off just one side of this old cement pallet.

Denailed the slats

Cut 4 lengths of 50cm, 4 of 42 and 4 of 19cm

Screwed the bottom parts together like so.

then added the top section. I had to true the last two sides up on the table saw so they were flush with the rest.

I have given a coat of Linseed mixture and hopefully tomorrow it will sit nicely under the bottom National Brood box of my Perone bait hive.

Bees Drinking

2010-03-31T11:47:00.002+02:00

These bees were in a container of soil I had dug out of a post hole. The rain had partially filled the container.
+

The Oscar Perone Hive

2010-03-29T17:16:00.010+02:00

There has been much discussion here about a vertical top bar hive that is quite different both physically and the management methods employed than the warre hive. I have decided to try one here in Spain as it is also a 'leave alone' type system suited to my needs. I have some concerns about it though, namely is it OK for my race of bee and also comb collapse may be a problem. The manual of instructions provided by Oscar are here and there is a translate facility at the top of the right panel.

My version of the Perone bait hive is a floor stapled to an empty British National Brood box with a further brood box above that have been fitted with BN top bars, some with old comb, some with starter strips and separated by plastic narrow end spacers. Above that is a BN Super with Manley frames with foundation. This configuration is smaller than the recommended Perone bait hive but my version is 89 litres volume which I feel is the top end of the spectrum for bait hives.

Here is my Perone Hive set out with some Lemongrass oil dripped inside and lemongrass gell smeared on the outside. I also painted white around the entrance as with my other bait hives.

If I manage to bait a swarm, I will add another brood box to bring it to about the size Oscar recommends. I am a little uncertain where to add this brood box. If I follow Oscar, it would go in empty under the current bottom box. My concern about comb collapse makes me think I may add top bars and starter strips and put it between the top brood and the super. More thought needed. First catch the swarm!

Mini Bait Hives

2010-03-11T14:57:00.007+01:00

The two home made mating hives I mentioned earlier are being put to use as mini bait hives to possibly bait a cast. I know that some people say that the size of a swarm doesn't influence their preference for a certain hive volume but I have had a cast in one of these before. Furthermore I have heard of casts setting up house in upturned flower pots before so I think, as I have them hanging around, I may as well utilize them. Both hives were prepared in the same way.

I put one wider top bar in with an old piece of brood comb waxed onto it. The other six bars have section starter strips and I have set screws on each side of the top bars to give a comb spacing of 32mm. The screws are also utilized with a wrap around wire to act as a hinge between two adjacent bars. I have opened a pair out on this first photo to show that when two adjacent bars are wired together, in order that if they bait a cast, the bars can be lifted out, opened out and easily wired together on the non hinge side. The two top bars opened out are exactly the length of one warre top bar. Therefore the cast can be transferred directly into warre box as 3 full size top bars and allowed to expand naturally without much disturbance.

Click on the photo to enlarge

This shot shows the top bars in position. You can see the wire hinges if you click the photo.

I have stapled a flap of mosquito netting to cover the top bars and make the top bee tight.

A piece of wool carpet as insulation.

Roof on. Notice white paint around entrance and landing board.

A concrete roof tile is put over roof and overhangs all sides. One end is wedged up to shed rain.

No More Papercrete

2010-03-03T15:32:00.005+01:00

The papercrete bait hive I mentioned on a previous post has been destroyed by the storm. I have now found two major negative factors with papercrete as hive material. They are not rodent proof nor storm proof! The photo below shows the remnants of the papercrete hive right next to my drawer bait hive. I will now utilize the drawer bait hive in the out apiary where I was going to site the papercrete one. The drawer hive, made from an old cupboard drawer, has a kenyan insert and has baited two swarms in the last 3 years. I am reluctant to put good hives in out stations lest they be stolen. This drawer hive looks like a heap of rubbish and if someone steals it, then god bless them, they must really be hard up! My mini kenyan bait hive was also thrown around by the storm but you can see it is robust enough to take such punishment. No more papercrete for me!

Please excuse my messy workshop!

Mini Hurricane

2010-02-28T19:43:00.005+01:00

Last night for over 12 hours we experienced what can only be described as a mini hurricane. The Spanish neighbors said they had never seen the like! Trees broken and torn out by the roots. Concrete roof tiles flying threatening anyone stupid enough to venture outside. I was lucky in that I only lost a few roof tiles, but I just knew that my hives would be decimated. First light when it had settled down. I ventured down to the apiary to find my hives all scattered. After having had a few blow overs last year, I had repositioned some hives close to trees for shelter and leaned planks against the hives but this was just too much! The winds were about 85 miles per hour, it said on the news. The bees were in foul mood at being not only knocked apart but also buffeted by these winds for 12 or so hours. I put back together what I could, even though they resented me for it. I am sure I will loose a few but hope that at least some will pull through. At least the temps were warm and there was no rain.
A sad day for bees but I heard that 15 people had died in France from the same storm. That sobering thought puts it into perspective.

More Bait Hives

2010-02-27T14:56:00.009+01:00

The time has arrived for me to start deploying my bait hives ready for the imminent swarming season. Tomorrow I will be setting out 4 x double warre within Layens boxes and 2 single warre + ekes, as mentioned in my previous posts. These will go nearby my home apiary. I have a couple of other locations in which I will put just a single bait hive, hoping to catch a feral swarm. One will be a small Kenyan (about half size)

And another my papercrete box. Both will take standard Kenyan top bars.

This photo shows the papercrete box upside down having repairs done to the entrance hole. Whilst in storage, some rodent had enlarged the hole, gained access and munched on the combs. You can see the remains in this photo. I have already repaired the hole with sawdust mixed with wood glue.

A couple of years ago, I made these two queen mating boxes. I never got a chance to use them, so I stored them away. I found a cast had entered one of them. They drew one comb in which you can see the remains of some brood. They obviously decided to find somewhere else more spacious. I consider this my donation to the feral population. Anyway, it shows that even with a tiny bait box, it is possible to catch bees!

The Beauty of the Almonds

2010-02-25T12:31:00.004+01:00

Bees on Rosemary

2010-02-23T14:44:00.003+01:00

A beautiful sunny and warm today and I planted my first batch of Inula seed bombs on my morning walk. I noticed first thing that the bees were all over the Rosemary and the Almonds. Yesterday, I sat and watched bees on some planted Lavender Stoechas, taking both pollen and nectar at the same time. They were doing the same this morning as I stood amidst the almond trees watching bees taking both pollen and nectar simultaneously. All my hives are now flying strongly. I also watched the bees on the Rosemary, the stamens of the flowers, being arched, painted mauve coloured stripes on the backs of bees taking the nectar. I tried to photograph this later with a macro lens. Unfortunately I didn't get the shots I wanted but here are two of the best shots. Dont forget to click on the photos to enlarge them.

Guerrilla Norm

2010-02-20T13:51:00.007+01:00

Reading and watching You Tube videos about Guerrilla Gardening got me to thinking how this could benefit my bees. My dearth period is broken by a plant called Inula Viscosa which flowers in September. This is the most important plant for my bees. It grows in odd places around and I have been collecting the seed from last year. It makes good sense to spread these seeds within flying distance from my hives. I was struggling trying to make some tiny newspaper envelopes for them when my wife says she has a stamp for cutting out tiny enevelopes that she has for greeting card making. Worth a try I thought.

It didn't cut cleanly through the thin newspaper as it is meant to cut card but it did OK. It also scores a square of fold lines that is hard to see but makes the folding easier.

I folded three sides with a dab of paper glue.

I did a dozen or so, waited a few minutes to let the glue dry then put a little compost in the envelope.

Using tweezers I put a few seeds in the packet and stirred them into the compost.

Folded over the remaining flap and with a dab of glue I had my first mini seed parcels.

It took no time at all to make this dozen parcels and I will be making and distributing many more on my morning dog walk. A quick hoof of my heel, drop in the parcel and sidefoot the soil back over the parcel.

Photo of Warre + Quilt Bait Hive

2010-02-17T15:18:00.004+01:00

Here is the photo to go with the previous post.

Eke for single warre box bait hive.

2010-02-16T16:34:00.003+01:00

On further reflection, a single warre box is only 18 litres volume. My successes in the past have been mainly in a little larger volume. I have now decided to use the warre quilt with the mesh removed as an eke to go under the single warre box increasing the total volume to 27 litres. If it succeeds in baiting a swarm, I can quickly transpose a new box under the top one and remove the quilt before they build down too much.

More on Bait Hives

2010-02-12T14:35:00.006+01:00

I know I said that 2 warre boxes are the ideal volume for a swarm and that is true but I have had some success in the past using smaller boxes. As well as the two box warre in the Layens boxes mentioned before, I will also try a couple of single warre boxes. I prepared one today re-using old materials.

I started by adapting a standard warre floor. I think the standard warre floor footprint is too small when the hive gets taller so I am adapting all of mine by adding boards as feet. I used two pieces from the pallet beams from my recent post. I used 8 long screws previously recovered from my blue kenyan hive to screw the beams to the old floor.

Sat an old warre box on top, still with 8 top bars and starter strip foundation. Then stapled a square of mosquito netting over the top of the box.

I am not putting standard warre quilts on these bait hives but cut squares of wool carpet.

The roof is finally put on and now just waiting until I am ready to set them out. There is no old comb in this one, just the starter strips, so I will insert a couple of pieces of propolis in the entrance well to give it a welcoming smell to any scout bee that comes near.

Ugly Warre Boxes

2010-02-09T16:13:00.004+01:00

Now that I have run out of the wood that I had brought back from Sweden, I took apart two old pallets. These are pallets used for delivering building materials and have been stood outside in the elements for 3 or 4 years now. Anything nasty that may have contaminated them has long since gone. Here is the amount of wood I got from two pallets.

I cut each piece into 35cm lengths.

Then I ripped each piece 3 times to true them and size them down to 7cm wide. Selecting the best for the long sides, cut them all to length. I glued and dowelled 3 pieces together to get 21cm panels. Cut the rebates in the short sides and made up 6 warre boxes. The dowels I used were made from the rebate cutouts. The end result is not pretty but these boxes are going to sit inside Layens outer boxes.

I made a mistake cutting the top bars! I cut the lengths too short. I had a senior moment and cut them 28cm instead of 32cm! Trouble was I didn't realize until I had cut and grooved about 60 of them! Luckily I used the pallet beams to make a batch the correct length.

Tractor Warre Lift

2010-02-06T20:13:00.004+01:00

I used my tractor warre lift for the first time today. The hive that has a layens transfer box with 8 Layens frames in it was sat on a floor which I wanted to change for one with a larger footprint. To achieve this I had to move the hive about half a metre to the left and set it on some concrete blocks that I had previously levelled. It worked really well! I connected the strop to the front bucket of the tractor, lifted slightly and reversed slowly in crawl gear whilst my wife steadied it by hand. Then forward to position over the new floor and box and then gently lowered onto it whilst my wife guided it to sit correctly.

click to enlarge

I put the roof back on and will now wait until April when I will harvest the top Layens box. This transfer box is about equal to two warre boxes so it will be interesting to find out if there are still any brood in it. The bees hardly noticed they had been moved and didn't bother us at all.

I set down the original floor by the entrance so that the bees on it could walk back home.

Lifting a Warre

2010-02-02T12:58:00.003+01:00

Time is getting on and the point where I will have to lift my warre hives to add bottom boxes will soon be here. I have two options, I could remove each box in turn and then set down on top of the new box and restack them. One of the main management points about warre hives is that you do not disturb the nest atmosphere, so that method is out! I am left with lifting the whole stack in one go and I am not physically capable of doing this by hand. I have seen some of those hive lifters that other warreors have built and was thinking along these lines at first. Then I thought about my simple lifting system in Sweden. How could I utilize a similar system here? Answer, my tractor lift bucket will be the power source. Position tractor bucket over hive. Screw down a clamp onto front of the bucket. Hang a lifting strop from the clamp and attach strop to hive. I screwed 4 eye bolts to corners of warre boxes. I bought 4 quick release shackles from the hardware store and a washing line. Washing line cord is surprisingly strong. Cut 4 lengths and attached them to the shackles with the knot shown in the photo below. I then used some of the cord to make a circle to tie the other ends of the shackle cords to. I used tape to tuck away all the loose ends. The rope circle will hang from the clamp screwed to the tractor bucket. I can then lift the whole stack slowly with just one finger.

Spring has Sprung

2010-01-22T10:29:00.004+01:00

Our winter which lasted all of a couple of weeks of coolish weather and in which the bees managed to fly most days seems to be over. The almond blossom has started and we noticed these wild small white narcissus. Only about 10cm tall, white and very beautiful.

I am pretty sure the bees don't visit them

They certainly visit this one though and I don't know the name of it. It is a straggly plant with lavender coloured 4 petal flowers.

Not much to look at but the bees love it. The leaves have a kind of milky sheen to them and the leaf joins the stem. I would appreciate it if anyone recognises it letting me know it's name.

2010-01-18T15:35:00.004+01:00

I have started making up my bait hives for the coming swarming season. My swarm season starts late February until end of April. This year, I am going to put out the usual motley crew of different boxes but I am going to add the ones that will from now on be my standard bait hive. A double warre box, set up as mentioned in my last post within the layens shell. A double warre is the perfect volume for a swarm being 36 litres. I have successfully baited swarms in 25 litre boxes but the 36 litre size will be more attractive to the scouts. The best attractant apart from volume is tempting them with some really old brood comb. I kept back some old comb just for this purpose. This one gnarly old comb was cut into two and waxed onto warre top bars. I took my time waxing these combs onto the bars using hot wax and an artist brush to make sure every adjacent cell was bonded with wax to the bar on both sides.

I repeated the waxing on a second bar.

I set the combs with the bars with a blank bar inbetween them. This is important as these combs are oddly shaped and do not match each other. This is how it looks from underneath, you can't really see the bar inbetween them but it is there.

The other tricks I use to bait swarms is to put a drop or two of Lemongrass oil in the hive to make it smell good to them. Together with the aroma of the old comb it should be irresistable. The yellow tub is a gel form of the same stuff that you smear outside the hive to give them the hint of the nice smell that is worth investigating.

My final trick is to paint white around the entrance to give a good contrast so that the scouts know exactly where to go. This really works!

More warre boxes and wax bead bars

2010-01-14T14:28:00.006+01:00

I used the last of the wood I had brought from Sweden to make a further 3 warre boxes. I made the top bars for them from the old kenyan top bars. I can get 3 warre top bars from one kenyan top bar, so little is wasted. I have been waxing foundation starter strips into kerfs of the top bars but I thought I would try something else.

Varrex a member of the NBN forum uses an old wood glue container to bead beeswax into the kerf of top bars. I tried a year or so ago and failed miserably. It was either too hot and just run everywhere or too cool and plugged up the spout. I thought I would give it another try.

I put the glue container with broken wax chips into my homemade solar melter.

After a few attempts I got the hang of it! Tilt the bar slightly whilst pouring from the spout down the kerf rather than squeezing the bottle. Allow the molten wax to run down the kerf.

2010-01-09T13:45:00.007+01:00

I hate waste! I think the throwaway society is one of the modern curses. I have 12 of these now redundant Layens hives just sitting around. After thinking about putting a warre inside WBC lifts, thanks to Christofer in Sweden, I wondered could I somehow use these Layens for something similar. I can and here is the plan. These Layens are one piece hives with fixed floor and roofs. I had to take the floor off two and a roof off one.

The floor is simply two boards with a central ventilation grill stapled to them.

I fixed two stout pieces of wood reclaimed from redundant kenyan hives as support feet using 8 large screws. I routed an entrance into one side of the floor.

The warre sits on the floor set back a little.

The Layens with both the roof and floor removed is set over and around the warre boxes.

The layens with just the floor removed sits upon the other layens. I screwed some cuff pieces around where they join so that no sideslip can occur.

There is room inside for a stack of exactly 4 warre boxes. Another tier could be added to bring it up to six and so on ad infinitum. There is no room for a standard warre quilt but the extra insulation in the layens roof and a square of carpet may suffice in my climate. So it seems several of my objectives have been achieved without much expenditure. The only thing missing is the aesthetics that a WBC hive has. Oh well! You can't have everything and I may still do that one day anyway.

Adam's Apiary

2010-01-02T19:27:00.002+01:00

I was asked to provide a link to the photo I mentioned in an earlier entry about WBC hives. I have been given permission to reproduce it here. You can see that the WBC is a really nice looking hive. Not only that, but it is what everyone associates a hive to be like. I certainly think a warre would do well in this arrangement.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Pressing Honeycomb Video

2009-12-28T15:21:00.002+01:00

Small Cell & Crossing the Great Divide.

2009-12-28T13:34:00.008+01:00

We were discussing natural comb building on the yahoo warre group and again on the NBN forum. Other beekeepers were saying that after just one season of bees building comb foundationless they were finding cell size in the brood nest at 5.1 to 5.2 and even less. Well I measured as much comb as I could this year from all the deadouts. They built consistently at 5.3mm in the brood areas. I never found anything less than 5.3. Now Stefan in Las Palmas who is a Dee Lusby disciple and therefore small cell advocate maintains that to get small cell the comb spacing must be 32mm. My Kenyans were all 35mm and my warre were the standard 36mm so he may have a point. This may also be part of the reason I saw so much comb curving in the kenyans. Scott from the yahoo warre group has said he puts nine 20mm wide bars in his warre hives instead of eight. I did the maths and realized if I did the same, I would get 32mm spacing. So this batch of 4 warre boxes and all subsequent boxes will have nine bars.

These photos show exactly how I achieve the spacing.

The first photo shows an end spacer of 9mm and the first bar pinned into place, the 12mm spacer with the screw as a handle and the next bar also pushed up and pinned.

This photo shows the 9mm spacer removed and the 12mm spacer put into the next position.

The next photo shows the next top bar being slid along before pinning into place.

All bars now in place and pinned in position. The pins are 'gimp' pins or what the Americans call frame nails.

Four boxes pinned and ready for the top surface of the top bars to be laquered with pure linseed oil.

These and several others will have a couple of months to dry and air before use.

In these next photos, you can see I have waxed small pieces of comb between the middle top bars, set on top so that when it is put under the warre hive it will crush slightly between the combs. This is to act as a bridge which the bees will be able to cross from the comb above. Bees are reluctant to cross a divide and have been known to swarm through lack of space even though there was an empty box below!

Another lost colony

2009-12-25T12:54:00.003+01:00

The cutout from my log cabin didn't make it I am sad to say. I thought I had the queen and sufficient bees to keep them going with some feeding but I may have damaged or lost her during the transfer. I noticed the hive I put them in was attracting a lot of attention from robber bees even though they had a very small entrance. When I checked inside, there were just a few bees remaining plus the robbers on the goods candy I had put over the crown board. I laid the crown board with what remained of the candy upside down on the table and just let the bees go for it. Here is a very small video from this morning with most of the candy gone. Goods Candy is just honey mixed with powdered sugar and you can see the bees somehow taking the honey yet leaving clumps of sugar. This shows quite clearly what they prefer to eat!

Over the last few days I have been making up spare warre boxes, quilts, floors, roofs etc. I have been dismantling the now redundant kenyans and utilizing the materials, wood and screws, to make some of the above. I will be giving each of my surviving hives an extra box, possibly in February if the weather is kind.

With my comb collapses and warre blow overs this year here in Spain, I have been thinking of ways to improve the situation. I had considered a large beehouse similar to the one in Sweden until I saw a photo of some WBC hives in an English garden which looked picture perfect. By utilising a larger footprint floor and WBC style lifts and roof around a warre, several objectives are reached at once. Shade, insulation and a more stable floor. The aesthetics of these hives is also to be considered. One of the disadvantages of a WBC hive, namely the extra work involved with removing and refitting the lifts, is not a problem with a warre system as they are rarely disturbed. The main disadvantage as I see it is the extra material and work required to make them. Perhaps the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. I will ponder this.....

Cross Combing in Kenyan Hives

2009-12-15T10:57:00.002+01:00

I have had questions asking do I really need to convert from Kenyan to warre hives. I suppose I could, once a year, butcher thousands of bees to put things right but I cannot do that to the bees or myself. Below are photos of the underside of top bars and a kenyan carcass that I had to butcher to get the combs out of. You can see the cross combing and the wall attachments. The lower part of the kenyan is where the comb had completely collapsed and was anchored to the floor with brace comb.

As with all the photos on this blog, they are clickable to enlarge them.

Apiary in Transition

2009-12-12T18:00:00.005+01:00

My apiary looks very different now that I have transitioned from Kenyan to warre hives. This first photo shows some of the hives in transition now.

The follwing photo is one of the mini kenyan sat on warre box.

The only hive I have not transitioned into warre is my hybrid hive. This is the one that has half frames with kenyan style lower part to the combs. There was no cross combing or attachments with this hive so the experiment worked. I haven't harvested honey from this hive yet but I may take some in March next.

Bees wax collecting

2009-12-11T14:40:00.005+01:00

I set my old top bars on top of some empty Layens hives and there were bees collecting wax from them. They were chewing the wax off and packing it on their back legs just like they do with pollen or propolis. This small video does not show it in enough detail but that is what they were doing yesterday.

Two more kenyan warre transfers today

2009-12-05T12:11:00.003+01:00

Today I transferred two more kenyan colonies into my kenyan/warre transfer hives.

This first photo is of the blue kenyan as I am removing top bars.

This next shot is of the kenyan transfer box that is sat upon the warre box. You can clearly see the angle difference of the original comb and the widened angle.

Transfer of kenyan to Warre

2009-12-02T14:34:00.002+01:00

I transferred bees from a kenyan into my kenyan/warre hive this morning. Beautiful weather at around 23 degrees C. This was a very small cast that I hived in Spring and because its seven combs it had built were not full size and they were unable to fill any with heavy honey, it was the only colony that didn't have any collapsed comb. Lovely calm bees and they didn't mind at all being moved into their new home. I am hoping this one gets going next season.
I have three more kenyans to convert to warre hives and I have started butchering the vacant kenyans to make into mini kenyans that sit on the warre hives. I think I may have enough wood left from each one to make a warre box so nothing is wasted. The next couple of conversions are bigger colonies so I am trying to make the mini kenyan fit ten top bars. We will see how that works out.
I am feeding the bees with honey water that is left over from washing my pressing gear. I have set out on a table four round plastic feeders (leftover gear from previous years) sat on wooden bars so that they can enter from underneath and not drown.

Kenyan to Warre Transfer

2009-12-01T11:33:00.007+01:00

I mentioned in my last blog entry about a new idea I had to transfer from a kenyan to a warre. The transfer boxes I made in Sweden for this purpose were small kenyans with fillet inserts at the bottom to block the gaps over the warre top bars. This idea is similar but it opens out the kenyan sloping sides to match the width of the warre box at the bottom.

I started though with a new design of floor. I have had a few blow overs on my warre's this year and it is mainly down to the small footprint of just 34cm x 34cm. The floor below is 43cm x 43cm and built of stout timber so it is heavy.

The warre box sits on top as normal.

The modified small kenyan now sits perfectly on top of the warre as the bottom section of the kenyan is exactly the same section as the warre.

If you look at this next photo you will see the original end panel and the original screw holes positions marked in white. The new positions are marked in black. The top screw remained in place and the kenyan side rotated about its axis to its new position to match the warre. When it was in the right position, I marked the kenyan side at the bottom as it now projected below the end and sawn and planed the bottom to get it flush.

And here you can see the whole thing with top bars in place. You may notice the filled original entrance holes on the kenyan part. I just use wood glue mixed with sawdust for a filler.

When I transfer the top bars from my kenyans into these transfer boxes, they will have more space to fill with the extra room given. At this time of year there are but few brood combs and as there is only room for eight bars in this box it is important that I transfer them now before they start to build up again. I think I have about a month to do it.

Moving to an all Warre Apiary

2009-11-29T16:20:00.006+01:00

After my losses and in hive problems this year in my Kenyan top bar hives, due to me leaving them untouched for 6 months every year, I have decided that the warre hive is best suited to these conditions. I have to leave them with enough space to expand as the season progresses, but the kenyan unless properly monitored, gets badly cross combed. It doesn't matter in a warre if they cross comb as you harvest one box at a time.

My first priority though is to get the bees from my two remaining Layens hives onto warre boxes. Having tried various methods, I have worked out the best way is to simply make a transfer box that will take several Layens frames and set it on top of a warre. I made one that took eight frames and one that took nine. At this time of year there are fewer bees and little brood. Easily enough room for them and some stores in the transfer boxes. Later when they start to expand their numbers again, they will only have one direction to go and that is downward into the warre box. I have put only one box on for now but will add another in early Spring (February).

This layens had some collapsed combs which meant I had to pry two frames out together. Luckily I was able to discard these frames.

Here the transfer box sat on its warre box is complete with the layens frames and all remaining bees shaken into hive. I harvested six frames of honey in the process, so I am now pressing that honey with my pan press.

The next item on the agenda for me is to make some kenyan transfer boxes. I initially thought I might make them in the style of the ones I made in Sweden (see earlier post) but I have come up with a better idea. All will be revealed when I have transfered the picture in my head to one I can upload here..........

Warre with few varroa

2009-11-28T11:40:00.004+01:00

I hefted my warre hives (and my layens) and found one of the warre's to be light. As they were only on two boxes, I decided I would feed them and give them another box. I removed the quilt to find they had all but completely propolised the mosquito mesh I had stapled to the top.

I lifted together both boxes and found they had only built on three of the combs in the bottom box. They didn't need the third box but as I had prepared it, I put it on anyway. In that bottom box I laid on the floor two parcels of a mixture of my own honey and powdered sugar. I mixed in enough sugar until the mix only just flowed. I parceled the mix up in kitchen roll and just laid it on the floor. The bees will tear up the paper and throw it out eventually so no need to open up again to remove anything. This feed is to tide them over. There are flowers out, lavender, rosemary & fennel but the season has been so dry, I don't think they are secreting nectar. When we have some rain that will change.

These bees were quite calm and I give them a 3 out of 10 for temperament.

Whilst adding this extra box, I also changed the floor. I swept all the debris from the old floor and put it into an envelope. I don't normally do mite counts but this was an opportunity to see what 6 months of debris would show. 7 mites is all I found! Yes only 7. I have had more on a 4 day count in the past. I know a lot of mite carcasses would have been turfed out during normal cleaning but in the entrance well, a thick layer of wax flakes and pollen had built up and I had expected to find dozens of mite bodies. Natural methods are working to keep mites at bay I think.

Cutout from my Log Cabin

2009-11-26T13:39:00.004+01:00

The bees were entering a minute gap at the top of one of the porch rafters. I had to remove a lot of siding planks to get access.

There was no way I could remove the OSB board once the siding planks had been removed, It had been nailed on before the porch was built so I had to cut out a hole where I thought the bees were. I banged on the board and listened to the roar which gave me an approximate area to cut.

I smoked the bees up and away from the comb so that I could cut the comb attachments at the top without cutting bees. I removed several combs with few bees.

These combs and bees were put in a warre box on which I had stapled a wire mesh on the base. The combs were simply stacked side by side on top of this mesh. The gauge of the mesh has about 1cm holes so all bees can pass through it. I left the warre box right next to the hole in the wall. I had to leave many bees in the hole and was doubtful that I had got the queen. Next morning, it was cold and the bees had all clustered back in the hole. I took a floppy hat and placed it at the bottom of the hole then with a 2" paint brush sort of scooped the cluster into the hat. I quickly placed the hat and bees on top of the combs in the warre box. Closed it up with a top board and put on an inverted jar of honey over the feed hole. I noted when I removed the combs, there were no stores, nada. They were on the point of starvation. More on this later. I left them another night and was glad to see that the bees were still in the warre box which is 3 feet from the hole so I am now confident the queen is in there. I will be gradually moving this hive to the apiary at 3 ft every 3 days. It'll take a while.

Beeswax Utility Candles

2009-11-19T13:20:00.004+01:00

When I am in Spain throughout the winter, I live in a log cabin with solar power. In the dead of winter there is often not enough 'juice' in the batteries to last the evening. I sometimes rely on candles and like to make my own. I do not need fancy candles or short duration candles but utility candles, long lasting with a good flame. I also like to re-cycle stuff that is normally thrown away as rubbish. I have devised a way of using the little yoghurt pots and cola cans as candle molds.

The procedure is about the same for both. I start by making a hole in the centre of the base of the pot or can. With the cans, I then cut off the top with a can opener. I thread a wick through the hole in the base and secure and seal it with a little bluetack. I then use a clothes peg to hold the wick at the top central on both types. The yoghurt pot size uses a standard no15 wick but I have tried two methods with the cola can size. First method was to plat the no15 size wick so that effectively it was 3 times thicker. I have also used a piece of oil lamp wick which was cut to length then cut into 4 lengthwise. These wicks were soaked in molten wax before fitting to cans.

After the molten wax has set in the cans and pots, they are just peeled off and thrown away. When peeling off the cans use leather gloves as the peeled metal is extremely sharp and liable to spring against your hand.

Result cheap & easy long lasting candles giving good light.

A Little Honey

2009-11-11T16:58:00.006+01:00

My first attempt at pressing honeycomb earlier in the Spring was done in a cool kitchen on a cold granite worktop. This time, I put the bucket and the press in a warm room by a large sunny window. Flow rate is important when pressing and a little warmth quickens flow tremendously.

With my filter cloth in place, I filled the pan with cut pieces of comb.

Fold over the cloth and set the circular pressing block and jack seat on top.

Sit the jack in place and wind it up.

Keep winding until honey starts to flow above the circular pressing block.

Checking the water content with a refractometer, perfect at 17.5%.

10Lbs of honey later, I now have to remove the sticky blocks, cloth and wax from the pan. I use a large glass bowl of water to initially rinse them and soak the wax in before feeding honeywater back to the bees. Clearly not the most efficient way to get liquid honey but it is a simple and cheap method for a small amount. Oh and the honey tastes wonderful, mainly lavender I think.

Inspection & Harvest

2009-11-10T12:45:00.003+01:00

Now the cleanup of the deadouts and the wax rendering has been done and as the weather is still fine I thought I would take a peek in a couple of hives.

The first hive I opened was a normal kenyan by the garage not in the apiary. It was populated by a swarm captured in my hexagonal bait hive earlier in the year. Very few bees and only built 8 combs. I saw some capped honey, open nectar, plenty of pollen and one comb of brood both capped and uncapped. I didn't see the queen or eggs. I think I may put this tiny colony in a kenyan nuc and gradually move it to the apiary. Temper rating about 3

The second hive is a catenary TBH also populated by a cast at the same time as the other. This hive had the same number of combs built but even fewer bees with no eggs nor brood. I didn't see the queen either. Again I will transfer them to a kenyan nuc and if on my next look there is still no brood, I may combine them with the first one. Temper rating about 4

The next hive I checked was the blue kenyan which was populated by a prime swarm in March or April. They had built out every comb in the hive and it had a full set of top bars on a 1m long hive. I harvested some honey from several bars and returned the bars to the hive. Some of the honeycombs had collapsed onto the floor of the hive and I needed to use my wide hacksaw blade to detach it. I got in a sticky mess so about 12 combs in from the end, and as I had a full bucket of honeycomb, I decided to close it up until another time when I was clean again. I never got to the brood combs with this hive so I will have to check it again and probably harvest another bucket of honey from it. Temper rating 3

There seems to be a comb collapse problem in most of the hives. These first two had a little collapsed also. These first two hives had good shade so in their case I can only put it down to an unusually hot summer and too few bees to cool a large hive. So there is the dilemma of giving them enough space to build up with and giving too much space in a hot year for a small colony. Next year, if I hive any swarms, I will judge the size of the hive space given to the size of the swarm.

Wax Galore & Boiling Frames & Top Bars

2009-11-06T17:33:00.005+01:00

Finally got finished rendering all the wax from the deadouts. I haven't weighed it but a good few kilos I imagine. Used all sorts for wax molds so various shapes and sizes. Not that it matters as this wax will be remelted and made into candles quite soon.

Because of all the mess and moth larvae hidden in the crevices of the frames and top bars. I have for a couple of years now boiled them in a large pan bought for the purpose. The pan is set upon the old gas BBQ and quickly comes to the boil. This does several things at once, cleans away all dirt, wax, propolis and sterilises the wood ready for storage. The grooves in the top bars are cleared of wax ready for new starter strips. I set the woodware out in the sun to dry before putting away. I will blow over them with a blow torch before rewaxing.

Fifty percent survival, Papercrete Hive & Drones

2009-11-02T13:59:00.000+01:00

I was quite surprised today to see yet another hive I thought had died out to have flying bees. I think my initial quick check was a bit late in the day for these Spanish bees! Unlike my Swedish lot who will venture out as soon as it gets above 5 degrees! This one is in a kenyan which is positioned directly under the canopy of an olive tree. It was probably the smallest swarm I hived so it will be interesting to see how much progress they have made when I decide to take a look inside. So I now have established that my survival rate is 50% which seems somewhat better than a few days ago.

One of the deadouts is my papercrete hive which I had populated for the first time this spring with a large swarm. I haven't had time to open it up yet but I can see quite clearly rodent damage of two quite large holes near the base. These are probably gerbils which are quoite common around here. So I now know that papercrete is no use for a permanent hive. They are though very good as bait hives.

Whilst taking up the kenyan carcass from the apiary to my workshop for cleaning, I did a quick check on one of the layens hives that is still flying. I was surprised to see drones flying! I can only assume that there is a late supercedure going on.

I am spending most of my time, cleaning frames and top bars and rendering the wax from the deadouts into wax blocks. I am not being too particular with it as this wax is destined for candles. I still have so much old foundation stock from my days as an agent for a beekeeping supplier that I doubt I will ever run out of starter strips.

I have been measuring the brood comb cells in these deadouts and they are all between 5.3mm and 5.5mm.

Missing photos from last post

2009-11-01T13:54:00.001+01:00

These two photos show the kenyan deadout that had the comb collapse. Most of the comb was on the bottom of the hive. It seems I had not fitted the usual batten under the roof which allows about an inch air gap between the roof board and the top bars. Therefore the roof board was in contact with the top bars. I will not make this mistake again. This loss was clearly my fault and is unfortunate that it probably happened when the heat of summer usually meant drones had already gone and brood rearing had slowed or stopped. The new combs shows me that the bees tried to rebuild and tried to raise new drones when the queen was lost.

Cleaning the Deadouts

2009-11-01T13:33:00.000+01:00

Some good news, there are actually 10 surviving colonies. My brief entrance inspection of a few days ago didn't reveal that my hybrid kenyan which has half frames is still alive. This is indeed good news because the purpose of this particular trial was to see if I can combine the advantages of both types of hive without the disadvantages. Easily inspectable non attached combs which are as natural as possible.

The weather now is still hot getting to high 20's to 30 degrees by midday. Bees are all over the rosemary which is abundant on the hillsides. There is still some citrus in blossom too which I am sure they are taking advantage of.

The first deadout I dealt with was a layens which was previously populated by a swarm earlier this year. It was totally cotton woolled with wax moth damage. If you don't know what I mean and have never seen this here are a couple of photos to show the mess.

It is a truly horrible job and by the time you get the woolly gunk out and on the bonfire, there is precious little wax left to render. I will clean out the box, flame and boil the frames before refitting starter strips for re-use. I leave the box on it's side with the hinged lid open to allow the birds to peck out any moth larvae I have missed. I will then flame the box and steam clean the inside.

The first warre hive deadout is easy to work out why it didn't make it, it was on it's side with the boxes exposed. A simple case of disturbance leaving the hive wide open to attack by robbers and wasps.

The next one I dealt with was a kenyan. The demise of this one was obvious as soon as I lifted the bars off. Comb collapse over several combs. I think maybe the queen was killed in the collapse. They had rebuilt some comb and one was pure drone comb. Doing this in the height of the summer was desperate for them. Even then their new combs they were building were stretching. Here are photos of there new combs showing the stretching and drone comb.

I seem to have lost two photos from this post? I will publish it and see if I can add the missing one's later.

Spanish Beekeeping Season Begins

2009-10-27T11:23:00.000+01:00

My initial walk around the home apiary now I am back in Spain reveals that only nine of the 22 colonies I left in April have survived. To be fair, most of them were populated by swarms (15) so poor mating and virgins being taken by bee eaters may have contributed to the losses. I am sure though that the majority of the losses were down to the long hot dearth which I am told was particularly fierce this summer.
I am not too downhearted about it as I now have 9 colonies whereas this time last year I had but 7.
Now begins the horrible job of cleaning out the deadouts and rendering any wax that is salvageable. I have brought my kitchen steamer back with me from Sweden so hopefully it will get a good using in the next couple of weeks. Also scorching out the boxes and boiling the top bars and frames in my huge pan that I set on my gas barbecue. Photos to follow.

Treatment Free Beekeeping for All.

2009-10-12T15:00:00.000+02:00

Thinking about my last post and my long term goal to have healthy surviving bees without treatments on an ongoing basis, and the fact that I have adopted a live and let die policy, I have to have a plan B! The ‘what if’s?’ are forever in my mind! So what other strategy could be adopted to absolutely ensure long term healthy colonies without treatments?
I believe that all the very vulnerable genetics have already died out and the ones we have left have some measure of resistance or should I say tolerance to varroa. I have already demonstrated both in Spain and Sweden that bees can now survive for a period without treatments. I have heard it said though that these bees may possibly crash in their third year. I am about to enter that phase just about now with my Spanish bees so I will see if that is true or not in my case. But, I am more interested in finding a solution to treatment free beekeeping, and that includes the organic acids, for anyone no matter how many or what style of hives they employ. So here is my plan, and feel free to comment and criticise.

Treatment Free Beekeeping for All (example 10 colonies)

Purpose

To allow sustainable beekeeping in production colonies without the need for miticides or organic acids being put into the hives by using only locally adapted bees and queens which should steadily improve over time in both varroa tolerance and other characteristics.

1st Season

Stop all treatments and monitor monthly mite drops and keep records.

2nd Season

Replace any colonies that dies out with own swarms or splits from survivor colonies.
Height of swarm season raise 10 queens from two best colonies.
Make up nucs from all ten colonies by removing one frame of brood and one frame of stores from each and introduce virgin queens.
Place each nuc adjacent to each production colony and allow to build up to 5 or 6 frames and overwinter.

3rd Season

Using records, assess the 5 best & 5 worst colonies with criteria mentioned in the notes and in early spring combine overwintered nucs with 5 worst colonies in the following manner:-

Move original colony to one side and set frames from overwintered nuc in centre of new brood box but first thoroughly dusting them with icing sugar. Make up with frames with either foundation or starter strips. Add super and cover normally.
Place ramp board and Queen excluder on entrance. Shake all bees from original colony onto ramp board and dust with icing sugar. Take any sealed brood frames and add them to the undisturbed 5 strongest colonies but mark the frames first with drawing pins.
Destroy original queen that is left on the ramp board.

Later, at height of swarm season raise another 10 queens from best two colonies and start another 10 nucs in exactly the same manner.

4th and subsequent seasons

Proceed as in 3rd season using the best colonies for breeding queens and combining overwintered nucs with the 5 colonies that are two year old.

Notes:

The purpose of the first season without treatments is to establish if the genetics you have are still very vulnerable to varroa. A better than 50% survival rate is desired.

10 colonies is used as an example but this should work with any number bearing in mind the lower the number the more difficult it is to prevent inbreeding. Someone with just a few colonies may look to combine with another local beekeeper.

No mention is made of how the queens will be raised as there are so many ways to achieve this, even within the production colonies.

The wax is renewed automatically every two years and with this in mind never use the marked old frames for making up the nucs.

Best colony means lowest mite count as well as other criteria of productiveness, gentleness, non swarming etc. This should be qualitative as well as quantative.

The plan calls for starting 10 nuc’s but utilizing only 5, allowing for duds. Any nuc’s left over can be kept for emergencies, selling/giving away or bolstering a weak hive.

The production colonies are rejuvinated every two years.

The powdered sugar treatment which should remove some of the phoretic mites is to prevent fighting and combining.

The 5 colonies that are not requeened with a nuc have a brood boost and with appropriate honey flow timing may lead to bumper crops.

To circumvent inbreeding, within this example 10 colonies there should always be 4 distinct genetics in the queens. Record keeping of the queen origins in the nuc’s should ensure placement of two distinct lines each year.

2009 Swedish beekeeping season ends

2009-10-07T12:56:00.000+02:00

With nothing more to do beekeeping wise here in my last couple of weeks before I depart for my winter in Spain, I can reflect on what has been achieved this year and what I want to achieve in forthcoming years.

I started the season finding out one of my two kenyan colonies had died out. It had a mouse take up residence. Well at least one of them survived without any treatments (I did one sugar dusting in 2008). A first year 50% survival rate is OK for my long term goals. The main decision I have made for Sweden is, because of my lifestyle choice of being absent for 6 months, and because I wish to keep bees as naturally as possible, I realized the best option would be to convert to warré hives. My barn, although providing great protection to the hives and peace of mind whilst I am absent, isn’t in good condition, so the warré beehouse took shape in my mind and quickly became a reality. The swarm I captured in my Svea bait hive and subsequently onto warré boxes has become the first occupant of the bee house. The kenyan still in the barn when I return in 2010 will be progressively walked over to the warré bee house (about 50m) and when sat in front of it, will be split into two in my mini kenyan/warré conversion hives. These will be put directly into the beehouse. I am looking forward to testing my lifting equipment in the bee house (it works perfectly in my head). I have left a full box of honey and more for them to overwinter on and with any luck it should still be there to harvest next year.

Thinking about my long term goals as well as short and medium term ones, I suppose the only long term goal is to have healthy surviving bees without treatments on an ongoing basis. I have already demonstrated in Spain that by utilizing swarms and splits, any non surviving colonies can be made up for quite easily. Therefore I am utterly convinced that a no treatment low intervention regime is not only possible but is easily achievable. I have had bad tempered bees and swarmy bees but my first consideration has been surviveabilty. I have put up with these negative factors and will continue to do so as the seasons progress to cull out the genetic lines that don’t have what it takes to survive. I know it is fairly easy to select out these bad traits and I will eventually do so. Now is not yet the time but when I feel I have a good surviving base, I want to start a queen rearing program with not only the survivability factors but my own selection criteria. These would be in this order, gentleness, non swarming and productiveness.

Cider - Honey press first trial

2009-09-19T08:48:00.000+02:00

Pressed 50 litres of apple juice on this home made press. Next year I hope to use it in exactly the same way for honey. I know the flow rate will be much less but it should work in the same fashion.

http://img29.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mvi0123.mp4

In this video, the very first trial, I used only 4 'cheeses' later I used 6 and the flow rate was much more.

Lifting Strop & Minimum IPM

2009-09-11T17:05:00.000+02:00

I finally got around to making up my warré lifting strop, a 4 arm string strop which attaches to the bottom warré box where I have screwed 4 eye bolts in each corner. I used a SS boating shackle for the the lifting eye to attach to my hand winch and just tied on 4 one meter lengths of polypropylene string with 'S' hooks tied to the ends. This is the last part of the system I have devised so hopefully next Spring when I will be putting new boxes underneath I will have everything to hand. Seems like a long time to wait until then but hey ho we will have the Spanish season in between!

At last we are having some good dry and even sunny weather, I was worried I may have to feed my bees in the kenyan again what with the last few weeks of rain. It is amazing how quickly a colony can deplete itself of stores at this time of year with lots of mouths to feed and active bees! As we are forecast good weather now for awhile, I will hold off the feeding because there is plenty of forage still. Clover, heather, golden rod & the last of the fireweed.

Beekeeping in two countries with two different season means I am actively beekeeping all year round! Doing so has quickly focused my mind on my thoughts concerning varroa and other bee problems. The main conclusion I have come to is that left to themselves, in a good enough environment, the less I do the better off the bees will be. Last year I was all for small cell, open mesh floors, drone culling and sugar dusting as a natural integrated pest management system. I have now decided to adopt the 'Live and let Die' policy. Basically for two reasons:-

First I have always felt that beekeepers interfere too much in the lives of the bees and that anything we do in the end is counter productive. The Live and let Die thing really struck a chord with me and I think that perhaps bees have it within themselves to overcome any and all problems they may face if they are just left to get on with it. Look at surviving feral colonies for example. I know that is not very scientific and perhaps people may think that this is a case of hope rather than reality but I do believe it. There are now many reports of bees being kept untreated for several years in various parts of the world. I know I am going to have losses and I am prepared for them but with swarms and splits these can be easily made up for.

The second reason is more mundane and is because of my chosen lifestyle of spending half my time in different parts of Europe. Leaving bees for 6 months at a time in both Spain and Sweden necessitates a different approach. I have to leave a full set of top bars allowing the bees to expand and contract their brood nest as they require without me constricting them with divider boards. My 35mm top bars throughout the hive will be used both for brood and honey storage so allowing them sufficient space means they can move honey stores accordingly.

Will it all work out in the long run? I hope so and so far I am having some success, keeping bees without treatments, not opening the hives but a few times in the year, yet getting some honey and wax. As long as I have bees without buying in new stock and get some kind of return, I think I can call it a success!

Rendering old comb in kitchen steamer

2009-09-08T15:15:00.000+02:00

I used the old kitchen steamer today to render down this lot of old comb. Not much but it was just to try it out. It worked really well. I put the tray in the bottom compartment, fitted the second compartment over it and laid some netting in the second tray. I squeezed together lumps of the comb and filled the container, folded over the net, put the lid on and switched on. 10 minutes later I had a couple of ounces of rendered beeswax which I poured into a tray to set. The net I used was too coarse and it let through some bits of detritus so I will render this wax again with the next batch through a finer mesh.

Visit to the Straw Museum

2009-09-04T14:44:00.000+02:00

I visited a Straw museum yesterday. They had some old skeps, some with their hackles. The hackles were made out of birch bark made into a cone. Each skep was quite small with wooden floor and a central hole at the top about 2 inches diameter with a wooden plug closing the hole.

Steam wax melter

2009-09-04T14:11:00.000+02:00

My wife said to me the other day that the steam cooker that we cook our fish and veggies in had developed a fault, it still worked but the timer which clicked it off had become useless. I am sure with a mind to the fact that I usually spill wax on the cooker when I am melting it in a double boiler (tin can in a pan), she suggested I may be able to use it for melting beeswax. Anyway she bought a super duper new steamer and today I trialed the old one to melt a couple of ounces of beeswax. It worked a treat! Within a few minutes the wax blocks were completely melted. I took the opportunity to wax glue some old comb into the top of an ali-baba basket to use as a swarm catching skep/bait hive. I stuck the small piece of comb in and then poured the rest of the molten wax directly into the lid to give it that beeswax smell.

What Natural Beekeeping means to me

2009-09-01T16:58:00.000+02:00

Whichever type of hive you keep bees in, there are some essential elements of natural beekeeping that are common to all. Established beekeepers may already be following most of this but new beekeepers or those converting to natural beekeeping may have to adjust step by step as and when they can.

The five main elements are -

1 Minimum Interference.

2 Only increase from untreated survivors.

3 Do not use synthetic chemicals in the hive.

4 Feed sugar only when absolutely necessary.

5 Do not use foundation.

1 Minimum Interference. Every time you open your hive it causes stress to the bees. The queen can go off laying for several hours and the whole balance of the hive may be upset. Nest scent (and heat) is lost, and the pheromones that control everything that goes on within the hive have to be re-established.

2 Only increase from untreated survivors - once you have your required number of stocks, don't buy queens, as you may add potential genetic weaknesses. Unless some bees are established that will survive untreated, you cannot fully develop natural sustainable bee-keeping. By only increasing from survivor stocks, this mimics what happens in nature.(Survival of the fittest) Allowing for dead outs because they will happen, baiting feral survivors and splitting of surviving colonies is the way forward.

3 Do not use synthetic chemical varroa treatments in the hive, to which mites are likely to develop immunity and which prolong the bee/mite co-adaption process. At first, bees may not survive without doing something (bio technical IPM), but the less you do, the better in the long run. This may have to be a gradual process.

4 Avoid feeding sugar unless there is a danger of starvation. By allowing bees to keep enough of their own stores for them to survive the periods of dearth (winter in northern climes and summer in hot countries), their health is not compromised, as they would by feeding refined sugar. This view is supported by a number of studies.

5. Avoid using foundation, as it prevents bees from building as they choose. Typically, bees build cells of between about 4.7 and 5.7 mm diameter. Cells can vary in size through the season and between different strains of bee. Allowing bees to build their own comb puts them in charge of how, where and when it is built - and they know what they are doing better than we do.

For more information see here and here.

2009-08-30T19:44:00.000+02:00

Click to enlarge

I saw this today. A black wasp with a long tail depositing it's eggs in the occupied mason bee holes in my solitary bee house. When I first saw it, I thought I wouldn't have time to get my camera, attach the macro lens and get a shot in but I needn't have worried, this lady took her time and spent several minutes at this. Anyone know the species of wasp, I think it may be a ichneumon wasp but would appreciate knowing for sure.

Warré Bee House Entrances

2009-08-26T16:53:00.000+02:00

Click to enlarge

I fitted the Warré bee house entrance porches today. As you can see I have painted each one a different colour. The proximity of the entrances could lead to serious drifting so now I think I have enough of a contrast between each one.

I did a brief inspection on the kenyan in the barn this afternoon. I went about half way in. Still plenty of brood and the bees were calm. I did spot one bee with deformed wings so I will monitor this and look for further instances. Last inspection showed plenty of stores at the far end that I didn't inspect today. There was quite a bit of unsealed nectar in the first few combs but I am not going to harvest from this hive this year. I want them to winter well on plenty of their own stores. If they survive a third season without treatments, I will split this colony into two next summer and put them in mini kenyans sat on top of warré boxes in the warré bee house.

2009-08-19T19:58:00.000+02:00

After some discussion with Scott McPherson on the Natural Beekeeping Network forum I made up two kenyan to warré transfer boxes. Photo shows both boxes with one upside down. The idea is to sit the mini kenyan on top of a standard warré box. The width of this mini kenyan is eactly the same as a warré box and the added wings close off the gaps. I had thought originally I might two tier them putting the lower one with all the brood and the top one with all the stores. Of course I would have had to make some slotted bars to allow the bees up to the top one. Anyway I have decided I may actually split my kenyan next year and use just one box on top the warré's. Thanks Scott, although I had thought this is the only way to do something like this, you had actually beat me to it with your photo here:-
http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/2574827/sn/1508326128/name/DSCF0828.jpg
Great minds!

Bee Hive moved into Warré Bee House

2009-08-18T15:58:00.001+02:00

At last a warm sunny calm day! I moved the Svea/Warré combination hive into the new bee house after first painting that corner with Falu red paint. I will finish painting the bee house at a later date. I smoked the bees then put a floor board and a new warré box section with starter strips into place in the corner of the bee house nearest to the hive. Then without taking the top board off the Svea, I lifted the Svea section out of the way. This box was full of honey and weighed a considerable amount. I then took the warré section that I had given to them on June 29th and which was now fully drawn and filled with brood and put it directly on top of the new warre section. I then sat the Svea box on top of the two warré sections. The old floor was covered in bees so I propped it up at the new entrance. Later in the year when it starts to get cold I will add a square of old wool carpet to sit on top of the Svea box. I could have harvested some honey but I have left it all in there so that they can be sure of a full larder for the winter and means I will not have to feed this colony any sugar syrup. Next spring I will use the lifting gear and add a further warré section. Later in the summer I will remove the Svea section and harvest the honey. Then it will be a pure warré hive.

Lifting gear trial fit into warre bee house

2009-08-17T14:22:00.000+02:00

I did a trial fit of the lifting gear in the warre bee house. I used ten huge eye bolts screwed into the cross bars at all five hive stations. The lifting winch simply clicks onto the eye bolts at the required station. I used a brick to simulate some weight on the hook. So far so good.

Click on any image to enlarge.

2009-08-05T19:04:00.000+02:00

Finished the warre bee house today, well it still needs a coat of paint but all the structure is there. Fitted the runners for the rear sliding doors. There are two wide doors at the top and three sliding doors at the bottom. The bottom doors are to allow access to slide in a warre section underneath. The top doors are to allow access to fit the lifting gear onto each station. Now the whole thing is pretty bee tight so I will drill a small hole at the top under the roof overhang at each hive station to allow trapped bees out when I have done a manipulation. Here are a couple of photos which show rear doors and one of the front with the first 'porch' in place. The warre hive to the left of this will be transferred to this station in the near future.

Warre Bee House Entrances

2009-07-25T18:51:00.001+02:00

These are the front porches I will screw over the slots on the front of the bee house. Each one will be a different colour to prevent drifting on so closely positioned entrances. This first one is white. This first photo shows the entrance reducer fitted allowing only one bee space utilized in a robbing scenario.

This next shot shows the metal piece turned around and allowing a gap of 7.5mm x 70mm which acts as a mouse guard.

Here the metal piece is removed and the entrance slot is fully open and will exactly correspond with the slot on the bee house front wall.

Warre Bee House Takes Shape

2009-07-25T18:20:00.001+02:00

The first photo shows the eye screws set at each corner to enable connection of a 4 arm lifting sling.

This next shot shows the Bee House in position sat on 4x4 skids and concrete blocks. It had to be positioned in it's spot in the apiary as it was getting too heavy to move.

This photo shows the position of the cross bar over which the lifting sling will be put. It doesn't perhaps look like it but it is positioned exactly so that the sling comes down half way across the warre boxes.

Here you can see the slots cut into the front of the bee house. These slots will correspond to the gap in the warre bottom board.

Each slot will have a front porch type entrance which will be shown in the next post.

Progress on Warre Bee House/Box

2009-07-15T16:38:00.000+02:00

I made a little more progress on my warre bee house in the last couple of days. I am sort of designing it on the fly. Basically I want to enclose the warre hives with another box of sorts. The objectives are to 1) provide more shelter from the weather 2) house up to 5 warre hives. 3) provide protection from large animals which may knock over a lone standing warre. 4) house the means for lifting the warre boxes when heavy with bees and honey.

Here is a photo of the bee house in progress (on it's side with the front uppermost). It has a framework of 2x4's and a 1" ply floor. The front and sides will be half inch ply. Slots will be cut into the front to correspond with the warre entrances. I will also be putting the warre slotted metal entrances over each station. The front of the warre boxes will be pressed up against the front of the bee house front wall. The rear will have two large doors for access to the hives. I am inbuilding a bar spanning the bee house over which a lifting strop will attach to each hive. I have bought a manual winch shown in the second photo which can be slid along the bar to each hive as required. I should be able to fit at least 5 warre sections and a quilt in the height available. I am screwing eye bolts into each corner of each warre section and will make up a suitable lifting strop with 4 hooks. The bee house will sit on 4x4 skids which themselves will sit on concrete blocks. So far the bee house has cost about 85 euros including the winch.

Solitary bee house attracts it's first tenants

2009-07-05T18:54:00.000+02:00

If you click on the photos to see the full size images, the first photo shows one of the 3mm holes capped. The next shot shows one 10mm hole completely capped and one in progress being filled about a cm back from the edge of the hole. The third shot shows 3 10mm holes completely capped with a grey mud like substance. I assume these are mason bees in the large holes, which type I have no idea as I have not managed to see any activity. Indeed one day there was nothing apparent then the next I noticed these. This from wikipedia on the Mason bee lifecycle:-

The bees emerge from their cocoons in the spring, with males the first to come out. They remain near the nests waiting for the females. When the females emerge, the first thing they do is mate. The males die and the females begin provisioning their nests.

Osmia females like to nest in narrow holes or tubes, typically naturally occurring tubular cavities. Most commonly this means hollow twigs, but sometimes other similar spaces are used, including empty snail shells (they do not excavate their own burrows, unlike many bees). A female might inspect several potential nests before settling in.

Females then visit flowers to gather pollen and nectar, and it will take many trips to complete a pollen/nectar provision mass. Once a provision mass is complete, the bee backs into the hole and lays an egg on top of the mass. Then she creates a partition of "mud", which doubles as the back of the next cell. The process continues until she has filled the cavity. Female-destined eggs are laid in the back of the nest, and male eggs towards the front.

Once a bee has finished with a nest, she plugs the entrance to the tube, and then may seek out another nest location.

By the summer, the larva has consumed all of its provisions and begins spinning a cocoon around itself and enters the pupal stage, and the adult matures either in the fall or winter, hibernating inside its insulatory cocoon. Most Osmia species are found in places where the temperature drops below 0°C for long durations, like Canada, and they are well-adapted to cold winters.

Swedish swarm has new home

2009-06-29T13:56:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I quickly knocked up a warre box and floor so that I can give my new swarm more room. The Svea bait hive I baited them in neatly fits directly over a warre box with a little overhang one side and a little underhang on the adjacent side. This makes it easy, as I don't now need to make a transfer board to interleave between the two different boxes. I actually used an empty Svea hive, sat it on top of my new warre box and floor next to the swarm and simply lifted the frames from the old svea into the new. The bees were extremely gentle and had built out most of the combs in the Svea. I have not yet made a warre quilt but I will quite soon hopefully and get it on. These Svea hives are meant to have another box around them, similar to a WBC hive so are made from quite thin wood. The hot temps recently has had the bees bearding quite a lot. The setup is only temporary as I intend to make a surround for several warre hives (number yet to be decided). Here in these photos you can see the warre with empty Svea sat on top and when the transfer has just been completed. I will leave the empty box and boards by the entrance for a few hours in order for the stragglers to find their way into their new home. The new combs were full of nectar, it seems her majesty has not yet come back into lay. I am pretty sure this swarm from the size of it was a prime swarm and was not headed by a virgin.

A new swarm arrives in my bait hive.

2009-06-23T23:00:00.000+02:00

Whilst working in the garden yesterday, I thought I heard a car coming down the track to our house. I looked around and saw a cloud of bees in swarm transit coming across the front of our house. Satisfyingly, I watched them come down and take over one of my bait hives. Now I knew these were not from my one remaining hive. I only checked them last week and they were not in any position for swarming. On closer inspection, these new bees are much darker than my original bees. I examined the trajectory of the flight path on a map and I am 99% sure they are from a beekeeper known to me about 3 km away. These are the bees I mentioned last year that were reported to have very few mites. I said at the time, it would be great if I could get hold of these genetics. Photos to follow.

Second Inspection.

2009-06-14T12:08:00.000+02:00

I did my 2nd inspection of my one remaining Swedish hive this morning since getting back here at the end of April. I believe in leaving them to do their thing and any 'help' we give them actually hinders mostly. So my inspections are few and far between these days. My first inspection showed only one very small patch of brood about the size of my hand and few bees. This now has brood on several bars and very little drone brood. I saw a couple of drones on the combs but have not seen any flying yet. I managed to rid some of the old string that I had tied the combs to the top bars with last autumn. A couple of bars were crossed combed and I had to do some surgery and now have two large pieces of brood sat at the bottom of the hive under empty top bars next to the divider board. Nearly every comb had some side wall attachment which needed cutting too. Not like my Spanish blacks that never attach! I am still learning the Swedish beekeeping calendar and I suppose it will take a season or two more before I can second guess timings. Another reason to leave them to it. They know what they are doing even if I don't. I have been thinking of doing a split on this hive to make up for the one that didn't make it through the winter and to give me the backup I need. Having looked at this one, it doesn't seem a candidate for splitting yet, maybe in a month it may have caught up if we have good weather. The last two weeks have been cold and rainy so little chance for them to get going! Even though I don't inspect them often, I am always watching them at the hive entrance which is through the wall of the barn with the kenyan hive located inside the barn.

Bee Shed & Solitary Bees

2009-06-02T13:12:00.000+02:00

Well after too good and too bad weather for working, I finally managed to finish the bee shed. Only I have now decided that perhaps this is going to be my new workshop and the beeshed will be a leanto at the back of it. I have made the door but have yet to hang it. Here is the finished shed which I think turned out OK.

After finishing the shed, I had lots of little off cuts of wood and I made something I have been meaning to make for a long time out of them. A solitary bee house. Simply 4 pieces of wood screwed together for the outside frame with some attachment brackets to hold it onto the side of the shed under the eaves. Then filled with pieces of framing timber drilled with various size holes. I drilled 10mm at the bottom, then 8,6,4 & 3 on subsequent levels upwards. I have seen mason bees here and I wondering what else may take up residence. Chance to use my new cheapo macro lens maybe!

The dandelions are now mostly just clocks whereas just a couple of weeks ago they were a sea of yellow. Now given way to buttercups and lupins just starting in the hedgerows. The apple blossom now all but gone, together with the heg (Bird Cherry) given way to the Rowan. Not seen any drones yet this year but have put out two bait hives here anyway with some old comb in. These are old Swedish Svea hives with only 8 frames in each. If I catch a swarm in them, I will be able to put them directly on top of a warre box.

Bee house roof structure started

2009-05-15T19:01:00.000+02:00

The bee house wall frames are in place and secure. Not only did I nail them, which is all that it calls for in the spec, I also bolted the sole plate through into the floor frame and also bolted the corners of the wall frames together. This has made a really strong structure which should withstand any winds. I have the first 4 rafters in place, unfortunately the ridge beam is warped so I am having to make each of the 12 rafters to fit so this is going to be a slow process. Now me and ladders don't mix as I suffer from meniers disease and I can fall off my feet! So the next few work days are going to be my biggest challenge!

2009-05-12T20:40:00.000+02:00

Work is progressing well on the bee house. The floor is now laid and two of the wall panels are made. I decided to fit a window after all when I found an old one in the barn complete with glass. Now I am considering how I am going to fit it out. I have already worked out that a Kenyan top bar hive fits nicely between wall studs. Of course the entrances will be through the walls with perhaps a pollen trap on the outside.

Norm's Bee House

2009-05-09T15:36:00.000+02:00

The old barn that houses my Swedish bees is looking decidedly dodgy and about to fall down. I do like the comfort of knowing that during the 6 month winter I am away in Spain, they are housed where the Elk can't knock them over and also provide extra protection from the elements. I have decided to build a bee house which will hopefully house up to about 6 hives. It will be based on this plan at Buildeasy :-
http://www.buildeazy.com/shed_1.html
I am thinking of leaving the window out of the construction and having a shed solar light for working inside. I will drill a 3/4in hole in the side at the top to allow bees out.
Here is the start I have made in the following 3 photos.

No More Screen Bottoms

2009-04-30T20:06:00.000+02:00

Having arrived in Sweden early on last Sunday morning, I checked to see if bees were flying later in the day. Of the two entrances, only one had bees flying. I went into the barn and opened up the one that didn't have flying bees to find a dead colony. There was a mouse nest and a huge mess of detritus all over the screen bottom. I thought by having the entrances through the walls of the barn that mice wouldn't be able to enter. Next winter prep I will fit mouse guards. I put the mess down to the mouse but decided to do a comprehensive check on the surviving hive at the first opportunity. I managed to do it yesterday and found almost as much mess in the surviving hive too. No sign of mice but the 6 month period of not being able to clean underneath and the fact that bees cannot clean the bottom themselves with a screened bottom has made me realize that I need to fit solid bottoms on my hives. I scraped half an inch thick gooey mess of horrible gunk off both the underside and top of the screen. The bees were fewer in number than when I left them in October and there was only one frame of sealed brood. I managed to correct some comb problems. There were a lot of attachments and I cut away some of the string that I had tied the comb onto the top bars. One comb that I was cutting side attachments was full of honey and fell off the top bar. I lifted this out and put in new top bars with starter strips. These bees had plenty of stores and were bringing in pollen. I believe these bees may not be as hygienic as my Spanish bees but I am now worried about the hives in Spain with screen bottoms will have similar problems when I return later in the year.
For a minimum disturbance management system that I am now employing, screened bottoms cause more problems than their worth in my opinion. Bees will keep a solid floor clean in my experience. I cleaned out the dead out hive today and removed the screen floor. I will fit a solid floor before next occupation.

I thought it was all over, it is now!

2009-04-18T18:21:00.000+02:00

Walked down to the apiary yesterday, looked at all the entrances and watched the bees bringing in bright orange and white pollen. The dog came with me for the walk and we passed through the apiary and around the side of it into the olive grove. There in an olive tree was a good sized cast! Seems like they still have an urge to swarm even after I cut out all the queen cells over 3 weeks ago. Oh well, maybe one hive was just later than the rest. I decided that this one may be my contribution to the feral population and didn't retrieve it. I hedged my bets though and put out a Layens bait hive with starter strips and some old comb by the garage. They were still in the tree when I did my evening walk and again when I did my morning walk this morning. The scout bees were checking out the bait hive most of the day, then mid afternoon when I looked there were no more scout bees at the bait hive. OK, fair enough I thought, they have gone feral! I walked down to the apiary to see if they had gone and was amazed to see them going into a layens hive that I had combined 3 casts in 3 weeks ago! The bees in that hive have been flying everyday right up until I saw this happening. I wonder what process is going on here, if anyone has any ideas I would appreciate knowing them. I am hoping this is a one off and not a new wave of swarm fever. I am keeping the bait hive out just in case and will be vigilant for the next week until I depart.

Spanish Seasons End

2009-04-16T16:40:00.000+02:00

Well my Spanish beekeeping season is coming to a close. I brought back the swarm that took over the Layens hive on my porch from the out apiary and put it into the home apiary. They seem to be flying well this morning. I also put warre style entrance restrictors on all the casts that have been hived. At the moment there is plenty of forage but when the dearth starts, these casts will probably still not be up to full strength so a reduced entrance will help them defend better. Then there are the wasp problem in autumn that they will also have to defend. I have had bees abscond before because of battles with wasps and hornets. The two TBH's that are at the side of my garage have no real shade from the hot sun so I have laid 6 concrete roof tiles over the top of each roof plate for extra insurance. My next week will just be observing entrances and watching bees coming and going and little else to do. It will be interesting to see how many make it through to November. These bees have never been treated with anything since October 2007, not even powdered sugar. Yes they have Varroa and it doesn't seem to be a problem for them as yet. I am hoping the hygienic behavior I have witnessed is a sign that these bees can tolerate varroa to some extent. As long as I only make increase from the survivors instead of bringing in new genetics, this trend should only increase. I am quite prepared to lose quite a few of these colonies with the belief that those that do survive will have the resistance I am looking for.
As my Spanish beekeeping season ends, my Swedish beekeeping season starts[big grin]. I was worried that perhaps my Swedish bees may have not made it through the long cold winter but my in-laws, did a quick visit to my house in Sweden last week-end and I had asked them to look for flying bees behind the barn if the weather was warm enough. Lots of bees flying there, so at least one of my two colonies have made it through. It makes me laugh when I hear some beekeepers that say bees can't survive without good management. Good management, in their heads being constant inspections, dosing hives with all sorts of chemicals and robbing them of their honey and substituting sugar syrup. On the contrary, my minimalist approach of leaving them much to themselves, not treating with anything and leaving them with enough stores seems to be working.

Last transfer from Kenyan nuc to Kenyan TBH

2009-04-12T15:23:00.000+02:00

This morning I did the last transfer of the season from my Kenyan nuc that I hived a cast into in a previous blog entry. Very simply, I set the full size hive on the cinder block that the nuc was sat on together with another block at the rear. Just lifted the top bars off and straight into the full size kenyan, taking care to keep the same order. The bees were in their 'linked arms' chains making comb and I had to gently pull them apart to move them. They had built about half a dozen small combs but the bees were nice and gentle. I give these a 3 in my temperament scale. I left the upturned nuc by the entrance so that the stragglers could walk back into their new home. I put on the queen includer at the entrance just in case and will remove it in a couple of days. I am giving them, and the rest of my Kenyans, the whole hive with a full set of top bars. I am not using divider boards. I will be leaving them for six months and they will manage their brood nest and honey storage to suit themselves. They have been doing this for millions of years so why do we sometimes think we know better and manage it for them. All you need to ensure is that the brood nest is next to the entrance and they will put the honey stores at the back of the hive away from any potential robbers. Before I leave I will put entrance restrictors on 75 x 7.5mm in case there is any robbing and they can defend better. I will be putting these on all the kenyans and warre hives. So my Spanish beekeeping season is just about complete. There are many flowers producing now with Olive to flower in May and also the Spanish Broom (Retamar) as well. I hope my bees take full advantage, especially if it is to be a really hot summer.

The dearth period will begin in June, everything green will frazzle and turn brown except the olive and citrus trees and some thyme on the hillside. The bees will stop brood rearing and have to survive on the honey they have stored. They will cool the hive with evaporative cooling, bringing in water and spreading it on the combs and fanning at strategic places. In a really bad year, all drones will be dispensed with! This is the danger period until the first blossom breaks the dearth period, probably late August early September, a scruffy plant known as 'Inula Viscosa' or 'Altabaca' in Spanish. It is a good source of pollen and nectar for the new generation of young bees. Luckily I have it growing all around the area. In the dearth of last year, I lost 3 out of 10 colonies. I am expecting to lose at least 6 colonies this year, but until I return in November I won't know if my 'no treatments' regime has caused further losses. At the moment I am up over twice the numbers I started with so 'no treatments' is a valid option!

Bait Boxes to Kenyan Top Bar Hives x 2

2009-04-11T19:12:00.000+02:00

Although a bit windy today, I transferred the bees in the Octagonal Bait hive and the papercrete bait hive that had attracted two of my swarms/casts. I didn't want to leave it any longer as I knew they would be building comb pretty fast and the if left for much longer the comb shape would have been all wrong and I would have had to resort to trimming the combs. I transferred the octagonal one first as this one had odd shaped top bars that were only about a cm thick. I took the same number of standard top bars and screwed through directly over these thinner bars and simply lifted them out and directly into the kenyan in the same order. So these combs are a bit odd as they have an extra underslung section.
I then tackled the papercrete hive. This was the last one to attract a secondary swarm so I knew its comb would be smaller. I lifted these bars out and into the smaller catenary hive. Again these bees were quite mild and in my 1-10 temperament league, I would give the octagonal bees a 2 and the papercrete a 3. I put queen includers on the entrances just to make certain they don't decamp, perhaps not liking the new wood smells. They soon settled down and are now back to normal. The photo shows the kenyan with the octagonal minus roof and behind the Catenary hive with the papercrete box on it's side. These hives are not in the apiary, I set my bait hives by the side of my garage about 100m away from the apiary. It will be some time before I can move them 1m at a time to their final positions.
I have one more transfer to do, the kenyan nuc to full size kenyan then my Spanish season is complete. Thankfully that one is in the apiary.

3 casts in 2 warre boxes

2009-04-10T22:19:00.000+02:00

Here is a rather unsteady and incomplete video of me combining 3 casts in a couple of upside down warre boxes. I later attached the floor with a couple of brackets, put a queen includer on the entrance and slowly and carefully turned the boxes the right way up. I popped on the quilt and roof and 3 days later removed the queen includer from the entrance.

Populated and Hastily Made TBH's

2009-04-10T13:09:00.000+02:00

I have three swarms sat in bait hives that need re-homing before I leave for Sweden in two weeks time. I spent the last few days making a couple of Kenyan TBH's (Top Bar Hives). I made them out of some leftover timber I brought back from Sweden for work on the log cabin. The roofs are simple flat OSB boards with a strip of wood around them to provide an air gap between the roof and the top bars. I didn't have enough woood for the third hive so I have converted the mould I made for the papercrete hive I made a couple of years ago into a catenary curved TBH.

Today I did a very brief inspection of the two Kenyan Top Bar Hives that I hived swarms in on the 23rd and 26th of March. What a difference in temperament. Maybe it's because they are in a hive that is more to their needs and are able to build natural comb. Each hive had built out over 12 combs each since that time and had good pattern brood on about 10 combs. I didn't mess too much as I didn't need to find the queen. The combs were centred perfectly on the starter strips with no side wall attachments whatsoever. I would give both these colonies a 3 for temperament now whilst before it was 6 or 7! I was particularly careful with these combs as they are brand new, built only in the last few days. My mission was purely to see that both queens were laying and was quite surprised at their progress.

Merops Apiaster

2009-04-04T15:56:00.000+02:00

The 'Bee Eaters' arrived today! I didn't see them, I heard them. I was on my usual morning walk with the dog in a heavy mist early on. On the way back I heard a flock of bee eaters go all around me. There trill sound is quite distinctive and is quite unmistakeable. I suppose they will take quite a few of mine but it has never been a problem and is part of the natural system.
I finished pressing my honeycombs this morning; total of about 50lbs. Just enough honey to last us the whole year. The taste is absolutely amazing, delicious, superb. I have not fine filtered it just as it came out of the pressing cloth with tiny bits of wax and pollen.
I saw something today which I thought I would never see. A virgin queen coupled with a drone. I was sat watching the last swarm I have had sat in a tree take over a Layens hive so I was underneath looking skywards. It was about 3pm and either side of this Layens were two other bait hives with casts in. I don't know which of the two the virgin came from but I had to do a double take not sure at first what I was seeing. It must have been about 8ft from the hive when I saw the queen coupled with probably one of their own drones as she left on her mating flight.
So I started the season with 7 Layens hives and now have 21 populated. I have three Kenyans TBH's to build and transfer these bees from in the next three weeks before I leave for Sweden.

Enough is Enough

2009-04-01T20:06:00.000+02:00

Having dealt with more swarms and casts than I remember in this last week or so, I decided that's it. I have to do something about this. I started at one end of the apiary and went through every hive comb by comb and removed all queen cells. There were still many sealed and unsealed cells. I must have lost the queen from one of the layens frames whilst cutting out queen cells on one Layens frame. My wife spotted her so I caught her in the clip catcher and returned her to below. Whilst doing same I removed all the frames from the transfer boxes on the kenyan and the hybrid kenyan and shook the bees back in. Transfer boxes are not the way to go when trying to convert from box hives to either warre or kenyans. Restricting them to move downstairs has only led to the swarming urge even with lots of room below.
Whilst understakingthis onerous task, I took the opportunity of harvesting eight layens frames of sealed honey. So tomorrows job is pressing these.

Careful what you wish for!

2009-03-30T13:32:00.000+02:00

After last year with 10 hives without any swarms, I decided this year to encourage them. I purposely left frames full of stores so that laying space would be restricted. Did not check for QC's etc. The result of this is too many swarms and having to deal with them. Perhaps this season is exceptional anyway as far as swarming goes. Even both the hives I have in transfer with Layens frames in the top baxes have swarmed. My thinking that reducing the brood to eight frames in my warre transfer would drive the queen down to lay in the warre boxes has proved incorrect. They just swarmed instead! I would not recommend the transfer box method to anyone now. Same for my Layens/Kenyan TBH transfer. So I started the season wanting to rid myself of Layens hive and somehow get them in warre's and kenyans. I find I now have all my warre and kenyans populated plus most of the Layens.
I had finished waxing some starter strips in layens frames on my porch, I left the hive on the table feeling smug that I was now ahead of the swarming. I went for a siesta and woke to hear a very loud whirring noise outside the bedroom window. When I saw the bees taking over this hive still on the table, it was like a tsunami of bees and a wonder to behold, truly awesome. Next morning I took this hive to the out apiary. Whilst at the out apiary, I checked on the bees at the hexagonal hive. There were none in there so the bees I saw last week were just scouts. I removed this and all the other bait hives to my home apary. I really don't need any more bees right now.
Currently, I have 3 seperate casts sat in cardboard boxes waiting for me to combine them into a yet to be built warre hive. Again I will put on a queen includer at the entrance and let the bees decide which of the 3 virgins they want to keep. I assume the queens will fight to the death. I will remove the Queen Includer after 3 days in order for her to get mated. At least I may be able to sell the populated Layens hives!

Casts

2009-03-27T13:32:00.000+01:00

This post was started yesterday morning.

Morning
Firstly the cast from yesterday was back in the same tree this morning.
I got it back in the cardboard box before 10am. I will wait again until twilight. This time I will put them in a warre box with queen includer for a couple of days. Let's see if they like that any better.

I am still not sure if the papercrete hive is populated, lots of bees on the outside but very little happening at the entrance.

The other two 'prime' swarms in the kenyans are now bringing in pollen so I will remove the queen includers soon. The includers are knocking off the pollen.

Mid Day
Seems I was wrong on both counts, the cast in the Kenyan nuc is still there and so is the swarm in the papercrete hive!! Not only that, yet another cast, albeit smaller was sat in exactly the same spot on the olive tree. That is now in a very small cardboard box, again awaiting twilight. I will combine both these casts in the warre box this evening and let the bees decide which queen shall lead them. Removed the queen includer from the first swarm in the blue kenyan hive.

Mid afternoon
Seems like my policy of nil swarm control has backfired on me a little. This afternoon I am sat with 5 swarms/casts in cardboard boxes and a bucket waiting for hiving. Phew! I don't want this many colonies so I am going to have to start combining some.

Evening
I hived two large swarms in Layens hives, as that was all the full sized hives I have available now. The three smaller casts I threw into two warre boxes that were held together with metal brackets and a mosquito net stapled to the top of the top box. I upturned the two boxes which had topbars and starter strips in place and threw in all three casts one after the other. I brushed the bees which were spilling out back in and popped the floor on, then screwed that in place. I put on a queen includer on the entrance and turned the whole thing back the right way up, put the quilt on and then the roof. I will let them decide which queen to go forward with.

Swarms again.

2009-03-26T20:25:00.000+01:00

Well, surprise surprise, both swarms were still in their cardboard boxes when I went back down the apiary. I am not sure I got the queen in the papercrete hive. It was getting dark when I had dealt with both of them. Here is a small video of me hiving the cast. I have not put a queen includer on the nuc as she has to be mated as soon as possible. Time will tell if they all stay put.

More Swarms

2009-03-26T13:26:00.000+01:00

Yesterday and today I had other swarms. Luckily, in both cases I saw which hives they were issueing from. Yesterdays swarm was at 3pm from a Layens and todays was from the Layens to Kenyan top bar hive transfer that is in progress. Yesterdays was treated exactly the same as the previous post and deposited in a Kenyan TBH with queen includer on the entrance at twilight. Todays swarm was at 11am and as of this moment(2pm) they are still in the cardboard box under the olive tree. It is a long and nailbiting time until twilight, will they stay or will they go!!!!!
I am thinking that if I try to deposit them now in full hot sunlight, the queen may just fly off and I can wave them goodbye! So I am nervously waiting until this evening again before I attempt to transfer them. If they stay, I will put them in my 'Papercrete' Kenyan top bar hive. I made this a couple of years ago out of moulded papercrete (see biobees forum for details), it is the shape of a Kenyan on the outside and has a catenary curve on the inside. This hive has stood outside for over a year so I know it can withstand the weather. What I don't know is if it can withstand the humidity of the bees or even if the bees will chew it up! .....................................................
Update at 2-30pm. I just went down to the apiary to see if they were still there. I never got as far as the cardboard box which is at the far end of the apiary because there in a different olive tree sat a small soccer ball size cast patiently waiting for me to drop it into a box. I didn't have my bee suit on so I tucked my pants in my socks found another cardboard box and old curtain and deposited them as before. So far not one sting from all these 4 swarms then as I was putting something under one corner of the box to prop it open a little, one got me on the ankle through my sock. I have no more full size Top Bar Hives so this one is destined for my small TBH nuc box........................................................

A swarm in an olive tree

2009-03-23T22:14:00.000+01:00

A swarm issued from one of my hives today. It was about 3pm when I noticed it on the bough of an old olive tree next to my home apiary. I went to get suited and booted and found a cardboard box and a sheet. I laid the sheet on the ground and held the box under the swarm and gave the bough a sharp shake. Most of the swarm went into the box with a bit of a thud. I quickly upturned the box onto the sheet. There was a hole about 2 inches across on one corner of the box. A lot of the bees re-clustered on the bough so I shook again and brushed off the bees. They just kept flying off and returning to the bough, I cut a section of the bough off and laid it by the box. I then decided to leave things alone because if the queen was in the box they would soon join her. I checked about an hour later and sure enough they had joined her in the box and the bough was clear of bees. I left them again until 7-15pm when it was just going dark outside. Enough light to see but bees had stopped flying. I wrapped the sheet around the box, lifted it up and walked up to the apiary. I opened a prepared Kenyan top bar hive with half the bars removed and dumped the majority of bees inside the hive. Using the bee brush, I coaxed the bees back in whilst replacing top bars with the other until the full complement of bars were in place. I fitted a queen includer over the entrance and laid the sheet with a still large amount of bees on in front and up to the entrance. I knew I had the queen inside when thousands of bees walked up the sheet and into the hive. By this time it was getting quite dark and I knew they wouldn't be going anywhere. Layens to kenyan top bar hive the easy way!

More photos of first honey pressing

2009-03-20T12:53:00.000+01:00

I don't know why blogger doesn't allow more than 5 photos so here are the rest of the photos from the last post. I would also like to add that this honey is from my La Yesera apiary which is multifloral with the main flowers being lavender, rosemary, thyme, almond and citrus. It was left for a full year before removing these two frames from one of the Layens hives.

First test of the home made honey press

2009-03-20T12:28:00.000+01:00

Today I pressed the first honeycombs in my home made honey press. I realized right away that the hole in the pan where the honey runs out is way too small. I removed the plastic spout but the honey is still very slow coming out. Now I have started this batch, I will press on until complete and open up the hole for the next pressing. Here are some photos that shows it all.

First baited swarm of the season

2009-03-19T18:41:00.000+01:00

No sooner as I posted about not getting any swarms yet, I find one in one of my bait hives. I only put this one out last Sunday. I wasn't even going to check them this afternoon but my dog wanted a ride out! Long story! This hive was a bit of an experiment. There was much discussion on the warre group about hexagonal hives being the optimum shape for a bee nest. I decided to use some old pallet wood and give one a go. I found it very fiddly and time consuming so I turned it into a small bait hive. Now some people reckon that a bait hive should be about 40 litres volume. I have only ever baited swarms in smaller volume hives so I make mine about 25 litres which this is. I doubt very much that this is feral as I have been told there are a lot of hives about 200m away. This hive has angle cut top bars with pieces of comb bonded to them with beeswax. I also used a swarm lure with QMP (Queen Mandibular Pheromone) and some attractant gel smeared on the outside. I will leave them where they are for about a month and see if they stay put, then I will transfer them to a Top Bar Hive at my home apiary. I will use some of my standard 43cm x 35mm top bars and screw through into these thinner bars. Then just lift them out and into the TBH. I am hoping these bees will turn out to be the gentle stock I need to introduce into my apiary.

Another Split

2009-03-19T11:14:00.000+01:00

Click on photo to enlarge.

Today was warm and calm so I decided it was time to do the split I have been planning. It's purpose is twofold, make up for winter losses and also to convert from Layens to my hybrid Kenyan top bar hive. This hive uses British National top bars and cut down hoffman frame sides. (trying to get the advantages of natural comb without the disadvantage of comb attachment) These extend down for about 10cm where they finish to leave open comb in the kenyan style. The top of the bars have a beespace and a set of panels which prevent the hive being fully open when the roof is removed. The open top bars allow me to sit a Layens size box on top of one end nearest the end entrance. Now I knew I would be devastating this hive and the bees have been testy before so I lit my smoker and gave them about 3 puffs of weak smoke before it went out. I always seem to have trouble with smokers staying lit so I am going to dry some olive leaves for the job next time I use it. I opened up and sure enough they were on me by the thousands so I lay a wet tea towel over the top of the frames. I lifted out the first frame which was full of capped honey, the second the same. I shook the bees off and put them aside for harvesting the honey. The third had a good lot of sealed and unsealed brood so I transferred this into my top box. The next frame had an unsealed queen cell with a grub in it so my timing appears to be perfect. I didn't hang around looking for the queen, I quickly transferred two more frames and filled up the space with frames with starter strips and closed up. I moved the original hive to the other end of the apiary. So this hybrid hive top section now has 4 frames of brood with a queen cell and possibly the queen, and all the flying bees. The layens hive which had six empty frames to fill up the spaces has 6 frames with lots of honey and brood of all ages, eggs, possibly the queen and although out of balance, will quickly re-establish itself. I give the temper rating of these hives 7.5 on my 1-10 scale of nice to nasty. The hybrid Kenyan is third from left in the photo before the Layens box went on.

The spring flowers are still glorious and the citrus is about to start flowering too so plenty of forage is avaiable in this good weather. Some of the pollen being brought back is a deep royal blue? No signs of any bees in my bait hives set out in three different areas as yet but it is a weekly anticipation which I look forward to, followed by slight disapointment at each site. But there is always next week!

Home Made Honeycomb Press

2009-03-11T20:26:00.000+01:00

I saw this on a german bee forum that Bernhard Heuvel had mentioned on the warre yahoo group. I made mine out of an old exercise bench. I already had the pan and I bought a new scissor jack capable of lifting 1 ton. I will wash the jack several times in washing up liquid and relubricate with olive oil. The spout at the bottom of the pan is a cut down nozzle from a frame sealant cartridge. I cut a circular pressing block of pine and a rectangular block that the jack sits on. Around the inside periphery of the pan are many teak laths strung together with stainless steel wire. The jack was my only expense at 18 euros and considering I was going to pay several hundred euros on a press I am well pleased. Just need some honey to try it out now.

Layens to Warre Transfer Plan C - warre #2

2009-03-10T16:26:00.000+01:00

Today I did another transfer of Layens to warre hive. I made a box which will take 8 of the 12 layens frames and sits on a warre box with a little gap front and back. Screwed closing pieces to it and warre, made a top board with hole for feeder, quilt box and roof.
The bees had covered 9 frames with brood so I have donated the frame of brood to the hive I did the first warre transfer to using two diagonal frames. See entry below.
These bees were extremely defensive and on my scale of 1 - 10 I give them an 8.5, I will not be increasing from this stock. Luckily they are now in a warre hive so I will not be touching them again until next spring.

Layens to Warre transfer plan B

2009-03-08T17:54:00.000+01:00

I think the upsidedown layens sat on a warre transfer is just too unstable so I have decided to go with other methods.
I have put four warre boxes, with the top two boxes completely empty and the bottom two boxes with normal top bars and starter strips, in the position where the layens was. I opened the layens and went through until I found one frame with eggs in and another with sealed brood. The top two warre boxes will take these two frames diagonally but there is no room for anything else. I then put a solid board over the top with a feed hole covered by a feeder and the upside down empty quilt. I put two frames with starter strips back in the layens and moved it to the other side of the apiary. These are very defensive bees and I used two wet tea towels on the tops of the frames of the layens to keep them subdued. On a scale of 1 to 1o for defensiveness I would give them about a seven. Last year when I opened one up, which I found was queenless, I would have given it a nine!
I also took the opportunity of the good weather to do a Layens to Kenyan Top Bar Hive transfer. I have a box with the same internal dimensions as a layens which sits via a board directly on the top bars of the TBH. The middle five top bars underneath the layens box have been modified with slots to allow the bees to go down through and out through the entrance of the TBH. I would rate the defensiveness of this colony at 6.5.
I feel quite happy at the new method of transfer into a warre because it kills two birds with one stone. I wanted to do some walk away splits anyway to make up for my three losses so if this one makes it, I only have two more to do.
Quite warm today, the spring flowers are at their peak. The almonds have virtually all finished blooming and the field poppies are glorious.

Disaster

2009-03-06T17:23:00.001+01:00

Well I was warned that they looked top heavy! I was meaning to tie them down but thought the olive trees would act as a wind break. Started with heavy winds t'other day and both hives went over and separated. One went down a 6 foot ravine. They are heavy and I had to use my tractor lifting bucket to get it back up. Both hives tops were open and the cloud of bees were determined to get me. Some did manage to get into my overall legs and I was stung on the calf.

So I have to start all over again. I can't lift them up myself so I am going to have to wait until I can get my brother around again. Boy these bees are going to be confused! One minute upside down next right way up and I now have to invert them again!

I promise myself I will tie them down next time

Still blowin! 3 straight days now. It takes a heavy toll on the bees, temps are around 9 degrees, I can see snow on the far mountains towards Granada. The bees sense the temps are OK and it is bright and clear so out they go. I suspect I am loosing far more flying bees than I will to the bee eaters.

Spent time in the workshop devising new methods of non intrusive transfers between layens and warre. I have made a transfer box that takes eight layens frames and almost sits directly on a warre box. I just need two fillets to close the bottom. Using just the eight brood frames, I think the bees will go down in time because they wil need to use these frames as honey storage. I have made a crown board with a feed hole. The 4 other frames which should be full of honey will be fed back to them with a feeder over and enclosed by a type of eke I have made. I have also made a warre style roof for this box which should also be able to be used for a warre eventually.

I also discovered that two layens frames sit perfectly diagonally in two warre boxes. If a crown board is fitted over these, a split of two frames with a queen cell, a shake of a couple more frames and some honey being fed back to them will be an excellent way of not only increasing stock, artificial swarming, and easy transfer from Layens to warre.

2009-02-27T19:36:00.000+01:00

Last evening I took my new medical stethoscope out to the hives to try out. I put it on the roofs but couldn't really hear anything. I then put it on the side of the hive box and could hear the hum and bustle of what was going on inside. I then went to the two Layens to Warre transfers I am doing and listened to those too. I also put the stethoscope to the top box of the Warre and in the first hive there was silence but in the second one I could hear the hum of the bees at work. This was a bonus find for me, I found a non disruptive way of monitoring the progression of my Layens/Warre transfers.
This morning when I went to the apiary, I found in front of one hive a drone at pre-emergence stage that had been thrown out. It looked as though it's thorax had been punctured and it was infested with varroa mite. I hope this is a sign of hygenic behavior. I have made a note of which hive it was for future monitoring.

I put bait hives out at my out apiaries today hoping to catch feral swarms.

Today at the Warre entrance

2009-02-26T16:27:00.000+01:00

2009-02-22T20:10:00.000+01:00

I decided today to close the upper entrances on both the Layens/warre transfers. I have felt up until now that the bees needed both until they overcame the upset of being inverted. With today being a little cooler, I wasn't so worried about them overheating at the top of the hive trying to get out. I have monitored them all day and they are both now using the bottom warre entrances although many bees were still returning to the top entrance and were not finding the lower one about 4 feet below it. I went out again at dusk and they have all managed to find their way home. I expect it will be like this for a day or two with reducing numbers of bees still trying to return to the top.
The almond blossom is all but finished now with just a few fields with late flowering varieties in full blossom.