Saturday 20 May 2017

First swarm of the year

Oh dear.  I was determined not to have any swarms this year after half dozen or more last year but the bees had other ideas.  This one came from a colony I split two weeks ago and was from the half with all the brood but without the original queen.  Just over a week ago I reduced the queen cells from 22 to one (or so I thought) but I must have missed one.  When I see photos of swarms they are always hanging on a single branch, waiting to be cut off and dropped straight into a box but mine are never like that.  This one was spread along several branches of a spindle shrub in my neighbour's garden, about 3m from the hive.

Minutes after it emerged there was a heavy downpour so I didn't think they would be off in hurry, giving me time for a cup of tea.  Here is a small group of bees after the rain.

The only way to get the bees off was to pick them up in handfuls.  I took a nuc box and put them straight in, as many as I could get off the branches.


Within minutes they were fanning at the hole in the crown board

and a few at the entrance.

I collected more stragglers from the bush and there was more fanning, suggesting that the queen was in the box.

Once I was optimistic that I had the queen I put on the roof and left them to settle.

An hour later there were no bees in the bush and a few flying from the nuc entrance.  I went back at dusk and brought them home.  This wasn't the biggest swarm and must have been lead by a virgin queen.  I'll let them settle down but I'll probably unite them back to where they came from in a few weeks.  My neighbour Gill is very obliging and after last year she is quite used to me turning up on her doorstep dressed in a bee suit.  Last year I didn't take any honey and so had none to give her but she'll be top of my list when I get some this year.

Friday 5 May 2017

Horse chestnut

The horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) is in full flower so I have been looking out for bees carrying red pollen back to the hives.  One hive was in full sun this afternoon so I watched with the camera.

This hive overwintered in a single brood box and had four frames of brood at first inspection 6 weeks ago.  Since then it has expanded to double brood and a super, with 15 frames of brood yesterday.  There were also several unsealed queen cells containing young larvae so I did a Pagden artificial swarm.  This is the box on the original site with the queen and the flying bees and there were huge numbers of them.  Not much pollen coming in, which is understandable as they don't have much brood to cater for, so I expect most were carrying nectar.  I did manage to find a few with red pollen in the blur of activity.




Horse chestnut is the only local flower I know of with this colour pollen.

It was interesting to compare the activity at the entrances of the two halves of the split.  This box was extremely busy whereas the other one, a metre away and rotated through 90°, was much quieter with a few bees doing orientation flights.  I'll have to keep an eye on them both to make sure they don't misbehave.

Wednesday 3 May 2017

Molly the Witch


This is Paeonia mlokosewitschii, a herbaceous peony, commonly known as Molly the Witch.  My plant is about 25 years old and normally produces a couple of dozen flowers although there are fewer this year.  It is popular with my bees but although they were carrying yellow pollen and were climbing all over the anthers, there didn't seem to be any loose pollen around, either on the flowers or on the bees.



I also have Paeonia delavayi, a dark red tree peony.

The bees have been on this as well this afternoon although they seem to be after nectar.  They were carrying little or no pollen and were burrowing deep inside the flowers to reach the nectaries.



Despite the attention from the bees, neither of these plants sets seed within the garden.  Interestingly, another tree peony, P. ludlowii, does but it is not yet in flower.