During a routine inspection of our hives at the apiary yesterday morning, the Queen was found on the hive floor. She was expired, bereft of life, shuffled off this mortal coil, resting in peace; in short, an ex-Queen.

Now these things happen occasionally; bees – even queens – aren’t immortal after all. It was particularly bad timing, however, in the run-up to Harrow-in-Leaf and the many preparations still to be made for that show. With no sign of any new queen cells it did, however, present an opportunity for a job that’s been on the cards for a while. We had a nuc-box (a half-size colony) of bees in the garden that were waiting for combining with a larger hive. It was queen-right and, though large for the nuc box it was in, too small to over-winter confidently. (Yes, it’s only August, but this is the time to prepare the colonies for winter!)

So on return from the orchard the frames from the nuc were moved into a full-size brood box, and come dusk were carefully taped up and driven to the orchard. There, the two brood boxes were placed on top of each other, with a couple of sheets of newspaper between. Doing this introduces the colonies to each other gently; they become accustomed to the sounds and smells of the other and are less likely to be aggressive once they finally eat through the paper and the colonies unite.  We normally move bees at dusk; late enough that virtually all the flying bees have returned to the hive (we don’t want them coming back to the hive location and finding their home has gone) but early enough that there’s still enough light for us to work safely.

Time will tell how successful the combination will be; and also why the queen died in the first place. She’s currently safely in the freezer for later post-mortem examination…

Harrow in Leaf

Just over a week to go before Harrow in Leaf and the tension is mounting…  every year we seem to enter more classes. Some of the entries can be prepared in advance, but there will always be lots that has to be left to the weekend itself.

Meanwhile every available space at home is filling up with jars, display frames, bottles, candles and much more besides. (I could tell you what but, before the show, then I’d have to kill you.)

Well, it’s been collected, stored, capped, matured, taken out of the hive, uncapped, spun, strained and bottled. Labels just need to go on and then it’s ready for sale.

Honey for sale! Jarred up, just awaiting labels

No, not Albus Dumbledore who “lives” a couple of miles up the road at the Warner Brothers’ Studio, but dumbledore the bumblebee.  (Dumbledore is an old English term for a bumblebee).

Most beekeepers are almost exclusively concerned with the one species of bee that makes honey in commercially-viable quantities, the aptly-named HoneyBee (Apis mellifera). However we’re all familiar with Bumblebees, of which there are about 250 species in the UK. Ranging from rather small insignificant bees, to real bruisers of things that can measure an inch long, we see them in their ones and twos and often they are out and about at the end of winter, long before the first honey bees emerge from their winter hives. Bumblebees live in colonies just like honeybees, with a queen, workers and drones. They do store nectar in the hive, but don’t process it into true honey.

The bumblebee, however, can be quite a character and it can be fun to spot and try and identify the different species. Beekeepers are often amateur entomologists too and can’t help but take a healthy interest in anything bee-related.  The “general public” too often find the humble bumble quite cute and endearing, but nonetheless when they get in the way and become inconvenient, look for ways to “deal” with the problem. Being on the “swarm list” we sometimes get calls from people concerned about bees in their garden / shed / loft / chimney and one of the first checks to make on the initial phone call is to verify whether the problem relates to bees or wasps (if the latter, we refer them to the council or a commercial pest controller). If bees, we need to establish if they’re honeybees or bumble bees. Most people can tell the difference but it’s fairly easy to take a description over the phone and be pretty sure.

When we get a call relating to bumble bees, the bees have usually been there for quite some time, and it’s always difficult to remove a well-established colony of any species. However occasionally we get a call that we can do something about, and this happened just a couple of weeks ago. Someone called in with a bumblebee problem; they were nesting in an old bird box, but their flight path was directly over a children’s trampoline and with the warmer weather, there was a risk of a child / bee interaction which could be nasty for both parties.  Since the bumblebee nest was already very well contained within the birdbox, we made an exception to our usual “no bumbles” rule and that evening, after dark, the box was carefully removed from the tree, wrapped in a sheet and brought home.

In retrospect we should have sited them a little further back on the roof; where they are now, they’re a navigational hazard when accessing the shed or garage. But they’re a nice novelty and very welcome here, even if they will never fill the honey bucket and pay their way.

Welcome, Dumbledore and friends.

The bees – like all of us – had a very wet winter; damp is more of a problem than cold for the bees, but four of our colonies survived through to March, ready for the spring challenge. Sadly one of the hives rather suddenly declined in activity and it was soon apparent that not only had the colony not survived, but it seemed all the bees had gone, too. Later we found damage on one side of the wooden hive marking the point a persistent woodpecker had attacked the hive. It had eventually managed to make a small hole right through, and whilst not large enough to get at the bees, the damage would have caused a stream of bees to leave the hive to try and defend it. Presumably the woodpecker was able to pick them off one by one as they emerged, to the point the hive was no longer viable. We’d protected the hives in the orchard with chicken wire (a few inches away from the hive) to deter woodpeckers, but hadn’t done this for the garden colonies. A lesson learned for next year.

The end of March brought warmer weather and an end to the soaking, and in the colonies the queens were laying well. With April underway two hives are doing well however one has a queen laying eggs in an erratic fashion. We keep notes from each hive inspection, so that we can monitor behaviour and spot trends both across all the hives and within each colony. Hopefully that way we can identify problems early and take action to resolve them. For now this “erratic” queen will just be watched extra closely!

Its great to be beekeeping again watching the pollen arrive on the bees back legs. Some workers arrive completely covered from head to foot in bright yellow pollen. The workers have also started to collect the nectar from the spring flowers and catkins available in the area.