Adventuresinbeeland's Blog

We just can’t seem to hold on to our queens this year. No sooner has one emerged than weeks of rain follow preventing her mating, or we inherit a new queen but she turns out to be poorly mated, or our nice new mated queen, who has been laying as efficiently as a German train, simply… vanishes. It’s getting hard to remember all their names!

Two weeks ago we inspected our new queen Neroli’s hive and she was laying brilliantly. Yesterday we looked in expecting to find more evenly laid biscuity brood; and instead found two capped queen cells. Her mother swarmed at the end of May, leaving behind orange Neroli, who by early June was mated and laying. Her hive is still too small to be swarming though, so why the queen cells? It was me that inspected Neroli’s hive, and I have a suspicion that I may have accidentally squashed her. We’ll never know for sure, but the timings point that way… if they started making the queen cells as an emergency measure after a queen-squashing two weeks ago, the new queen/s should emerge very soon, as queens take 16 days from egg to hatching. The break in egg laying will set the hive back 😦

Emma inspecting Neroli’s old hive. Love her pink gloves contrasted with the green trees.

They’re still very calm bees.

Dismayed, next we turned to Ginger’s hive. She was a New Zealand queen flown over this year; her hive was donated to us to look after about three weeks ago. Sadly we noticed a lot of drone brood being laid. There are rumours that bad weather in New Zealand this year has caused a lot of their queens to be poorly mated. Two weeks ago we spotted two charged queen cells in her hive, and marked the frame with drawing pins. During yesterday’s inspection we noticed one queen cell empty, and the other still capped but roughed up at the end, as if it might have been stung through by the emerged queen. We also spotted a very small ginger queen running around! We have yet to name her. Let’s hope she mates well.

Mmm honey…

So sweet…

The winter bees will get to taste the summer as they huddle through the dark days.

Bits of the weekend – a few photos

Clover is out. The red clover above is usually not appreciated by honey bees as the flower is too long for their tongues to reach its nectar, but it is by longer-tongued bumbles. Clover does best on a chalk soil and requires several days over 22C (71F) before it begins to yield. The honey is water white and has no flavour except sweetness; pollen load brown (info from Ted Hooper, Guide to Bees & Honey, p222).

Ealing beekeeper Elsa Pawley kindly showed Emma and I her happy hens.

Foxgloves in Richmond Park, or Witch’s Glove, Dead Men’s Bells, Fairy’s Glove, Gloves of Our Lady, Bloody Fingers,  Virgin’s Glove, Fairy Caps, Folk’s Glove, Fairy Thimbles, Lion’s Mouth, Fairy Fingers, King Elwand, Foxbell, Floppy dock, Flowster-Docker,  all names they were also called in the past… as explained in this brilliant post ‘Wild Foxglove: The Magic and Medicine of Digitalis purpurea‘, by Pomona Belvedere. Toxic but pretty.

Blueberry French Toast. One of the most decadent of breakfasts.

If we get two new queens in both hives, Emma calculated that makes a total of seven queens between two hives so far this year. Can anyone beat that?!

A lot of British beekeepers must be feeling pretty fed up right now. After a few days of glorious sunshine, the rain and winds returned. My aunt’s house in Aberystwyth (Wales) was flooded after days of endless rain, so she was left pulling up sodden carpets. Now we seem to be in a pattern of occasional sunshine breaking through, combined with rain and gusty winds, usually all in one day, making it impossible to wear a nice summer dress, because it ends up over your head. The London Brockwell Park Apiary blog sums it up well in their recent post, ‘Everything goes wrong again‘: “For the last month or two, just about everyone I’ve bothered to listen to has been full of tales of queens that vanish, fail to mate, lay drones or succumb to idleness”. Yep, British beekeepers are not happy.

Yesterday was a nice day by this year’s standards, by which I mean that the sun came out occasionally and we had strong winds but no rain. Ealing beekeepers sat around eating cake and drinking tea – Emma and I also celebrated our new queen Ginger with a little supplementary gingerbeer.

Our apiary manager, Albert, has returned recently after some time away in Spain. He brought back the frame above from a Spanish hive with him (he thinks it’s either from a Dadant or Warre type hive). Isn’t it huge? They must be weight lifters over there. You can see our tea cups box in the background. Each week a nice person with a car takes them home and washes them.

Andy took this year’s beginner beekeepers from the association’s annual course round the apiary, checking on the new nucleuses and topping up their feed. Our National Bee Unit has issued another warning that inspectors are finding starving bee colonies, as the weather is stopping the bees foraging. They have a good advice leaflet on feeding here: National Bee Unit best practice leaflet on feeding bees.

Andy surrounded by attentive students

In the photo below the beginners are gathering round Andy as he inspects David’s bees, the moodiest hive in the apiary. They kept their cool regardless and I think will make excellent beekeepers.

Emma and I checked our two colonies… Ginger appears to be laying a lot of drone brood, including in the centre of the brood frames, which is a bit worrying. We spotted her, so it’s not a case of a laying worker. And she’s a New Zealand queen bought by John Chapple this year, so she should be properly mated. We’ll need to keep an eye on that. Luckily Neroli is laying like a star, just like her mum and gran did – frames packed with digestive biscuit colour brood. I’m confident we can build her colony up into a good size for winter, but not expecting any honey this year.

There was an interesting article in the Evening Standard this week, ‘Celebrity beekeepers told to buzz off‘. It’s an interview with the forthright Angela Woods, Secretary of the London Beekeeping Association, who warns that there are too many bees for the amount of forage in this city. She’s also concerned about the trend for businesses to site hives on high rooftops, where the bees have to spend a lot of energy flying up and down.

I sometimes wonder whether by being a beekeeper here I’m doing more harm to bees than good. Until fairly recent history the people of London have been rampaged by a series of disease epidemics – bubonic plague, smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis. Anywhere where large numbers of people gather together is a risk factor, and bees are no different. Emma and I obviously try our best to look after our bees and keep parasite and disease levels down, but of course the more colonies there are in an area the quicker diseases spread, due to worker drifting and drones paying visits to other hives.

Bees being inspected in an Omlet Beehaus hive on a roof, photo from thebeatthatmyheartskipped.co.uk blog

Unfortunately, more and more people taking up beekeeping isn’t the answer to help bees, because it results in lower honey yields per hive and the bees having to work harder to find the nectar and pollen. And what about the struggling native bees living here, the solitary and bumble bees, who are having to compete for a limited amount of forage with ever increasing armies of honeybees? Are city beekeepers like me doing more harm than good? Would be interested to hear people’s opinions.

In my last post on Queen Neroli, our new Jubilee Queen, we had just combined our two hives, because one of the hives was weak and queenless. Yesterday we checked up on how the combining process had gone. Would our bees have chewed through the thin layer of newspaper and become friends?

At first we were worried, because the bees in the top box seemed very moody. They flew out at us, buzzing loudly.What had got them so bad tempered?

Worse was to come when we lifted the top box out. We had put the queen excluder between the two boxes to weight the paper down before putting the top box on, but we forgot this meant the big, beefy drones couldn’t get out. Several had got stuck trying to get through and had died in the process. That explained why angry bees had flown out at us. Many of them must have been drones deprived of the opportunity to do their business or chase virgin queens for a whole week, poor things.

Bees stuck in the queen excluder

Casualties of beekeeper silliness

With the help of Albert, one of the other Ealing beekeepers, Emma and I thought about what to do for a while. We had been worried by all the angry bees and were wondering if this meant the two colonies didn’t get on. Eventually we reasoned that the problem must just have been the queen excluder trapping the drones, so removed this and the newspaper. We put an empty super box between the two brood boxes, in the hope that the space will encourage the bees to think of the honey stores above as separate from the colony, so that they go up and rob the honey, storing it in the bottom brood box. We can then come along and remove the top brood box and burn up the old frames.

Once this was done, we looked at our new bees. Yes, new bees! Andy and Pat have kindly given us a nuc from Osterley Park. The deal is that they’re our bees, but in return it’ll be an apiary training hive and beginner Ealing beekeepers will be having a go at inspecting them each week. Sounds extremely fair to me 🙂

Our beautiful new bees even came “gift-wrapped”! The mesh is a travelling screen designed to allow ventilation, held down with drawing pins. The orange travel strap holds the hive together in transit.

Emma photographing our new bees

They were in a five frame nuc and had filled up every inch with comb, so we transferred them to a spare hive we had waiting, before they started getting ideas of swarming! Osterley bees have a reputation for being particularly vicious, but these ladies were surprisingly calm. Maybe they were easing us in gently. We put the first five frames in nearest to the entrance, gave them an extra frame of foundation to start drawing out, then two dummy boards to keep them warm during the forecast bad weather, followed by more foundation frames to fill in the remaining space.

As Emma moved the frames across she spotted the queen, like Neroli also a bright orange beauty! We have named her Ginger – I may have to make some Ginger beer next week to celebrate – this recipe sounds very good: http://notdabblinginnormal.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/make-your-own-ginger-beer.

I went to Albania and a lot happened while I was away! Our naughty queen Lavender decided to swarm when our backs were turned. And Emma had to put Queen Myrrh to rest and give her hive a new queen cell, because she had not managed to mate successfully amidst all the rain. Emma has a great blog post about all this action here: The Bad Beekeepers Club. Oh yes, something else that changed while I was away…the never-ending rain finally stopped, sunshine broke out here and rain came to Albania.

So we had a lot to do during our inspections yesterday. Emma has kindly let me use her brilliant photos here.

This was the queen cell Emma took from Lavender’s swarmed hive two weeks ago and put in Myrrh’s old hive. Alarm bells were ringing at the sight of it still being capped. It was already capped two weeks ago; the queen should emerge eight days after the cell is first capped. Sometimes the workers can keep adult queens trapped within the cell by thickening the wax topping, but that is generally done if the colony is considering throwing multiple casts, or after-swarms. That would not have been the case in this little hive.

Un-emerged queen. Copyright Emma Tennant.

We asked John Chapple’s advice. He instructed us to shake the bees off the frame and then gently cut the tip of the queen cell off with a hive tool to see what was inside. The queen revealed was obviously a goner, and had been for some time. “I’m no expert” (hah!) John said, “but that looks like black queen cell virus”. Having looked it up at home, this is a virus associated with the spore disease nosema, which is worrying. You can see her tattered wings and black body below.

This queen possibly died from Black queen virus. Copyright Emma Tennant.

Another odd thing was found within this hive; I gave Emma quite a jump when I held it up on my hand! It’s not a monster, merely a dead bumble bee I found on the floor of the hive. I asked John about it and he explained her black, shiny body was due to our bees having pulled all her hair off whilst attacking her. She was probably hungry and our bees didn’t take kindly to a robber. A sad ending for a beautiful beast.

Dead bumble bee. Copyright Emma Tennant.

It has now been over a month since this hive had a properly laying queen. We had wanted them to produce their own new queen rather than buying in a queen from a different climate, but the weather was against us and this attempt failed. We decided to combine the dwindling bunch of bees with our queen-right colony, using the newspaper method. This technique is much loved among beekeepers for its simplicity and cheapness, advantages close to all true beekeepers’ hearts.

Copyright Emma Tennant.

Some newspaper is placed on top of the brood box you wish to add extra bees to. “It’s not the Times”, John commented. No indeed, it was my local free newspaper. That’s how cheap I am. Next, a few little holes can be made in the newspaper with a hive tool. Don’t go too crazy with the holes, as the idea is that the bees chew though the paper gradually and slowly become accustomed to each other’s smell, preventing fighting.

Combining two hives using the newspaper method. Copyright Emma Tennant.

Ta-da! And so two hives become one. By the time we inspect next week they should have chewed through it all and become friends.

I should also introduce our new ruler in Lavender’s old hive. When her retinue decided to swarm and leave us, they left behind some queen cells, which Emma sensibly reduced down to two. I peeked in the hive last week and was lucky enough to spot our new queen. She was still a virgin, so a stubby little thing, but more shockingly than that… ginger. I mentally blinked several times, because many generations of our previous queens have been long dark beauties, black as can be. And here was a vibrant red head!

When we looked in yesterday, we were delighted to find she had mated and grown up into a spectacular queen. I am quite prepared to forgive her for being ginger. We have named her Neroli. This was Emma’s idea, as Neroli is an oil produced from the blossom of the bitter orange tree. I think it’s a beautiful name. From Wikipedia: “By the end of the 17th century, Anne Marie Orsini, duchess of Bracciano and princess of Nerola, Italy, introduced the essence of bitter orange tree as a fashionable fragrance by using it to perfume her gloves and her bath. Since then, the term “neroli” has been used to describe this essence. Neroli has a refreshing and distinctive, spicy aroma with sweet and flowery notes.”

Queen Neroli! Copyright Emma Tennant.

Here she is amongst her dark sisters. Her first daughters are currently mere neatly laid eggs. It will be fascinating to see what colour they turn out. Lavender had obviously mated with some New Zealand drones, but which drones will Neroli have mated with?

Copyright Emma Tennant.

And so we have a new Jubilee Queen! The Diamond Jubilee is this weekend, marking 60 years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. The nation is celebrating with two extra days off and a lot of drinking. I’m not expecting Queen Neroli to last as long, but I’m hoping she gives life a good go.

Finally, a shout out to Roger at Talking with Bees – www.talkingwithbees.com. This is a new blog which I’ve started following recently and am really enjoying. Roger describes his beekeeping self as “relatively sane with a hint of obsessive enthusiasm”, which I think gives you an idea of his sense of humour. He is very honest about sharing his fears and trepidations on his path to ‘beemanliness’. For those of you interested in the Omlet Beehaus, he has a very nice review of it here: www.talkingwithbees.com/beekeeping/beehaus-review.

After our day of workshops on the evil little varroa mite, Emma and I were itching for a chance to catch the last rays of sunshine in the Roots & Shoots garden, a horticultural training centre for young disadvantaged students.

We were lucky enough to meet David Perkins on our way round. David runs an Environmental Education outreach programme and manages the wild part of the garden for Roots & Shoots, keeping it welcoming for wildlife. It soon became clear that he knows an incredible amount about solitary and bumble bees. Below are some shots from his garden, which would just be the best garden ever for a child, because it features all sorts of overgrown paths and even a very dangerous dragon’s den…

In the ‘safe’ part of the garden, away from the dragon’s fire, we came upon a flurry of bees feeding from an apple tree hedge. After taking several blurry shots I was quite pleased with the one below of two honeybees. Bees may not be the most dangerous subjects for a wildlife photographer but they must be one of the fastest!

Honey bees on apple flowers

The garden was full of fascinating little signs like this. The more I read this proverb, the more I’m not sure I understand it fully; can anyone explain it to me?

Now this, this is David’s solitary bee home, or should I say castle. It is a copy of the Trellick Tower in London. When I said David knew a lot about bees…

Below you can see how some of the holes have been inhabited and contain mud, which solitary bees collect from the nearby pond. David explained to us that in many species of solitary bees males and females need different size holes. Males are slightly smaller than females. They hatch out earlier in the year to be ready for the females, so at this time of year there’s more males than females. We saw one male trying to approach a female but she shook him off; David said this was probably because she had already mated.

In the picture below you can see a red mason bee zooming home on the right hand side of the pic. There were lots of these lovely furry red bees.

David opened up the side of the bee tower so we could see the tubes inside. He didn’t get time to tell us much about them, but I’m guessing the yellow stains will come from pollen.

I was really saddened when David told us that his camera has recently been stolen, along with hundreds of bee photos on it. He came across as such a kind, gentle man and has given so much to the local community through his work in the garden. I hope he can afford to get a new camera soon.