I added Supers to all 3 of the colonies in my city centre apiary yesterday. I also removed the straw filled ekes which hopefully provide insulation on the roof of the hives.
The season feels well underway.
When I added a super to Colony 12 yesterday I discovered a problem -- presumably another one of my mistakes.
Last season I fed them and left an extra super on the hive over winter. I put it above a Queen excluder. Yesterday I opened the hive to put another super on and found that there were Drones above the excluder. Somehow the Queen had made her way into the super before I put it together.in
I did a 24 hour Varroa drop count yesterday. This involves clearing the removable hive floor and counting the Varroa mites which drop out of the hive over a 24 hour period.
I counted
These are very high numbers of mites for this time of year.
I have seen a worrying number of Varroa bodies on the floors of my hives. This is particularly concerning at the start of the season because it suggests much higher numbers of the mites later in the season. If I was a conventional bee keeper I would treat the hives now. I'm not going to. We'll see what happens.
All four hives which went into winter have survived. All four are now busy and apparently thriving.
There is dropped pollen on the base boards. There are dropped brood cappings. There is evidence that they're cleaning out old cells (the fine brown dust on the base board). There are also wax moth droppings -- showing that wax moth move in while the bees are in their winter cluster. I didn't see any ejected wax moth larvae. I did seem some dead Varroa.
There is lots of blossom around. The season is underway.
All my current hives (A, D, E, G) are upright (after the recent windy weather) and sound. The hives are fairly heavy, which is reassuring. A peak through the door shows the floor to be fairly clear. Their colonies (1, 4, 8, 12) appear to be fine. They were flying when the weather was warmer; there is evidence of activity on the base board.
The base boards have darker chewed wax which usually means brood hatching. It's hard to know when this was fell because I've only occasionally looked. It does suggest that there has been a slow but steady rearing of brood.
It's been windy and rainy recently. I checked yesterday on the 3 colonies in my out apiary. They're all upright (which is nice) and ticking over. There is evidence of brood emerging, with lots of Varroa mixed into the chewed cappings. The cold spring must have knocked back the Varroa but they built up again in the Autumn.
So far, so fine.
The weather has turned colder, with only a few hours when it's warm enough for the bees to fly. Yesterday they were very busy in my out apiary.
My bee group remarked that their hives had a lot of activity at their entrances, with lots of orientation flights. They suggested that there had been a burst of young bees hatched in the previous days and these were getting to know the area. The drop off in brood rearing may also have been releasing nurse bees to fly.
My hives are surrounded by at least half a dozen wasps which want to rob them. They zig-zag in front of the entrance; they crawl in under the Varroa screen; they wait at the edges and drink from the water tray. They want the honey but they can't get in.
All of the hives in central Oxford have small doors and strong guards. Three of the four have at least 20 bees visible on the outside of the hive entrance. One hive had fewer visible but appeared to be just as effective at guarding.
Things seem to be going well in all my colonies. They're all busy at their entrances. There are wasps near the entrance to every hive but they don't appear to be getting in. The Varroa counts are very low and there's pollen on all the base boards.