Sunday 15 May 2011

the bees are looking good, so far

I have just been to check the bees.  The two big colonies, that came through the winter queen intact, are looking good.  Both have lots of young brood in all stages of development, and eggs, and are still not showing signs of swarming.  I am very pleasantly surprised that they haven't got to the swarmy stage yet, but it makes my life much easier, and increases the chances I might get some honey this year.  The colony with a proportion of golden bees in it, that nine days ago was just starting to lay down stores in the shallow super box above the deep brood box where the queen lives, had completely filled the super by this morning.  I was worried that the nectar flow might be limited by the drought, so again that was unexpected but welcome.

I like to inspect the bees first thing after breakfast, if possible.  In chillier weather I might need to wait until the day has warmed up, but in general first thing is best.  Bees don't like the smell of human sweat, so opening the beehive after having a shower and before doing anything else too strenuous in the garden seems best.  And I like to look at them when I'm in a calm, focused state of mind, so after a good night's sleep is better than later in the day, when it may have notched up its share of aggravations and annoyances.  These two hives are both even tempered, and a pleasure to handle.  It is a long time since I've been scared handling bees, but it doesn't do to take them for granted.  Bees are like the sea.  They have nothing personal against you, but get them at the wrong time, in the wrong mood, or nasty bees, and they can be dangerous.

I didn't see the queen in either colony.  Neither is marked with a spot of coloured paint, which will make life much more difficult for me when they do start to show signs of swarming, and I need to find her as part of the swarm control procedure.  I have never managed to mark my queens in a dozen years of beekeeping.  You can't risk using any old coloured paint, since some solvents will dissolve an insect's exoskeleton, so you have to get a special pen from a beekeeping supplier to be on the safe side.  Earlier in my beekeeping days I dutifully did this, and by the time I found the queen the pen had dried up.  If I did find her to mark her, and had a working pen, I am afraid of squashing her, although what beekeepers do is practice marking drones, which can't sting.  I don't clip my queens' wings either, as some beekeepers do, to prevent her flying away at the head of a swarm.  This partly by default, because I scarcely ever see her, and by choice, because I am afraid of accidentally chopping her leg off in the process, but also as a matter of policy.  Suppose she falls on the grass when I'm opening up the beehive.  How is she to get back into the hive if she can't even fly?  And it seems disrespectful.  Yesterday I ate meat and deliberately squashed a snail, so refusing to cut an insect's wings off on ethical grounds is not a rational position, but there it is.

Bee eggs are like little threads of white cotton.  When first laid they stand on their ends, and over the next couple of days gradually descend until they are lying down, then hatch into white, c-shaped larvae.  The eggs are much easier to see in a good light than on an overcast day, and I do the bee inspections wearing my reading glasses inside my veil, as by now I couldn't see the eggs with my seeing glasses.  Before the queen lays an egg in a cell, the worker bees polish the cell, and if she has stopped laying, or gone, they will start putting nectar in the empty cells in the brood box, so one of the things you are looking for is not just the presence of eggs, preferably standing on their ends, but whether there are polished cells.  The beekeeping books and courses explain all the individual signs to monitor during an inspection, but after a few years it starts to work on a more gestalt level, and the main thing you are looking for is 'Does this look right?'.

I gave the most advanced colony two empty supers to work on, and put the full super at the top of the heap with an excluder board under it, fitted with Porter bee escapes.  These are tunnels made of plastic and wire, that give the bees easier passage one way than the other.  If I have fitted them correctly then when I go back on Tuesday I should find the top super virtually empty of bees, and be able to remove it safely.  I am not really sure whether I should take it yet, or leave it a few days longer.  At this time of the year they might have been foraging on oilseed rape, though there is none very close to the hives, and rape honey solidifies in the comb soon after collection.  If it sets in the comb I won't be able to extract it by spinning the comb in a centrifuge, but will have to chop the comb and set honey out in lumps, and melt them gently until they separate.  I have never done this, as I don't generally get rape honey, but friends who have say it is an unbelievably slow, sticky, tedious job.  I don't normally get honey as early as mid-May, so they might have been on rape this year.  With non-rape honey, that takes longer to set, you know it is safe to take when the bees have covered it with a wax capping, and you know it is still too watery and not fully converted from nectar to honey, if when you pick a frame up and shake it briskly, droplets of liquid fly out.  The bees had just started to cap this honey, and I don't think any nectar fell out when I shook it, though it was difficult to tell because so many bees fell off it.  The bees are only at the end of the garden, however, so if when I bring the honey into the kitchen next week I decide it isn't quite ready, I can always give it back to the bees for a couple more days.  Honey that is still too watery and not yet ripe will ferment and spoil in storage, so it's important to get this bit right.

Addendum  Blogspot are already making money out of Cardunculus, by advertising to me.  I posted today's entry, and ads for beekeeping equipment flashed up.  So that's how it works.  I suppose they have been since 1st January, which suggests it isn't a very effective form of advertising, since I haven't really taken any notice of them.  I certainly haven't clicked on any links.

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