more about bees and lawn edges

The porter bee escape had almost worked.  There were a few bees left in the super I wanted to take off, so I used a trick that works well for small scale hobby beekeepers who are only trying to take one super.  I had a spare super with no frames in it in a wheelbarrow about 10m from the beehive, with a spare covering board over it.  I removed the frames one by one from the super on the beehive, shook them to get the bees off, rushed them over to the barrow and put them in the empty box, then scarpered promptly with the barrow.  I only had to evict one bee from the kitchen.  Obviously if you are keeping bees on a commercial scale this is not tenable, but I believe professional beekeepers have other tools to help them, like chemical smoke to drive the bees down out of the supers.

I have just finished extracting the honey.  It is dark and strong flavoured, as any crop here in later summer is.  There are a couple of large chestnut trees in the wood, and chestnut honey is dark, so there's probably a fair bit of that in mine.  I'm sure the honey was ready for harvest, as the bees had almost finished capping it, but after a day in the kitchen with the aga it was extremely runny, trickling down the outside of the comb as I cut the cappings off, and it went through the sieve almost like water, whereas the previous lot clogged the sieve and was slow to run through.  This dark honey often stays liquid for a long time before granulating in the jar.

The inspection of the number two hive was inconclusive.  There were two queen cells only, no eggs, and the bees had begun to store nectar in the brood area suggesting they aren't expecting more eggs to be laid any time soon.  The bees were extremely buzzy, although they are normally placid, and I went through the brood box as briskly as I could while knowing the bees weren't going to give me the chance of a second look.  I didn't see the queen and am not sure if she is still there, so I left the queen cells, as I don't want to drive this colony queenless.  It was an inconlusive end to the swarming season, and shows how helpful the artificial swarming method would have been, if I hadn't messed it up last week.

The number three hive, that lost its queen over the winter and made a new one from eggs out of another colony, had built up strongly and urgently needed more space, whereas a couple of weeks ago they weren't using a third of the brood box.  I went and fetched them a super, feeling very pleased with myself that I'd remembered a queen excluder to go with it, and then realised when I began a quick inspection of the frames that I was wearing the wrong glasses to see eggs easily.  Fortunately it was good light and the hive has new clean frames, so I managed.  The bees were very quiet throughout, which shows that the pissy behaviour of the number two hive was not just because it was a hot and fairly humid morning.

The swarm are still in their nuc box, and I gave them some more sugar.  And that's the drama over for another summer.  I can't do anything more to stop my own bees swarming without risking sending them queenless.  I might pick up another swarm.  There might be some more honey, depending on swarming, weather and nectar flow.  But that's basically it for now.  Next will be autumn feeding, varroa treatment and woodpecker-proofing, but that's not for a while.

In the garden I have been mostly cutting the lawn edges.  There are a lot of edges in the back garden, just because it is a large garden.  I keep them to a minimum by having a few big borders, not lots of little ones, and by keeping to clean sweeping lines and not niggly wiggly in-and-out ones.  With everything else there's been to do, some edges had got very shaggy indeed, and as I trimmed I told myself I must cut them more regularly.  It's a quicker job when they aren't too long.  I use hand shears and not a strimmer, which no professional gardener would do, because I don't get on with strimmers.  Can't start them, don't like the noise, don't want to risk chopping the legs off the toad population.

The treatment of the edges influences the mood of a garden.  I try to keep clean lines, because curves that are pinched and wrong, and lines that are meant to be straight but wobble, are annoying.  I'm not too worried if they get a little bit whiskery and romantic, because so is the lawn half the time.  I don't mind a few shrubs growing out over the lawn and killing off bits of grass, as long as they don't impede circulation, because that looks relaxed and abundant whereas faced-up chopped off shrubs look depressing and car-parky.  I remember being told at Writtle that in Regency gardens edges were deliberately left long (I haven't gone and checked that fact because it's late and I can't be bothered now).  There was a garden in Essex, very fine in many ways but no longer open to the public due to the owner's ill-health, that had desperately sharp lawn edges.  They were cut with scalpel precision and a neat gully carved between the lawn and border, and no plant was ever allowed to stray over the divide.  It was a widely acclaimed garden done with skill and knowledge and with much to admire, but I didn't warm to it myself, and it was largely the edges that put me off.  They were very...cold.  I couldn't imagine walking around a corner and finding myself face-to-face with the god Pan in that garden.

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.