Things are hotting up! Chris and I underwent our 3 part BBKA Basic Beekeeping exam on Saturday 7th July, trying to dodge the showers. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for the results.
Task 1: construct a frame (on which bees draw out comb to store honey, etc) from a kit.
Task 2: undertake hive inspection, being given a specific task – mine was to identify the queen.
Task 3: oral exam covering lifecycles, hive management, identification of diseases, etc
In all, the exam lasted an hour for each of us – Chris going 1st. We had been swotting like crazy and it felt somewhat like being back at school. No pressure! Fortunately it didn’t rain much during the morning so we didn’t get too wet. In any event, the beesuits had to go into the wash immediately on our return as we have to be careful not to bring in any infections into the apiary.
Back at the ALGS apiary I found eggs in our ‘queenless’ hive (Hive 1 )when carrying out an inspection on Sunday, so assuming these are fertile (which will become apparent in the coming week), we can rest assured that the hive is now ‘Queenright’.
The East of England Seasonal Bee Inspector visited the ALGS hives on Wednesday 11th July and was very happy with the way they are working. No sign of disease or distress, and plenty of activity – another test over!
We are in the process of acquiring honey jars and designing labels (which have to conform to European and UK Honey Legislation) and hope to be producing our first honey harvest in the next couple of weeks. This will involve borrowing a honey extractor and a solar wax extractor and will, we are told, be a very messy experience! Bring it on!!!
Other Bee News:
We bought some more equipment to complete a new hive for the swarm we had collected from Gallows Hill Lane and which was still being housed at this point in a cardboard box cunningly adapted by Chris to replicate a conventional hive. Saturday evening saw us in Chris and Jo’s garden, wearing our still damp beesuits, trying to transfer the swarm bees - now christened by Jo as the ‘Newbees’ – into the new brood box. They had, we discovered, been chewing through the back of the box and the base of the box was covered in tiny dust-like fragments of cardboard. The bees had resolutely refused to use the frames we had put in to draw out comb and had made a maze of comb inside the box – filling it with pollen, honey and brood. Being cardboard…. I’m sure you’ve guessed already….. the weight of the comb was pulling down and the box was disintegrating. It was only meant to last a couple of days so still functioning over a week later wasn’t bad for a “Blue Peter” style hive. As the dark and the rain drew in, with Jo looking on, Chris and I removed the comb (sadly destroying the brood in the process) and transferred as many of the reluctant bees as possible into their new home. By the time we had finished we were absolutely soaked through. The following day Chris had to reposition the new hive into exactly the same place where the cardboard temporary accommodation had been, as when they returned from foraging the bees were still flying back to the empty space where the temporary hive had been.
Chris has been doing a Queen Rearing Course with Chalfont Beekeepers and has an Apidia in his garden, from which he will have to transfer the queen and her courtiers fairly soon into a nucleus box (a small hive) or a brood box.
So you may now be wondering where on earth this takes us! Well to sum up:
Your ALGS Apiary has 2 complete, healthy and working colonies of honeybees. The swarm Chris and I collected will stay in Chris and Jo’s garden until the quarantine period is over and we can ensure the resulting brood is healthy; then I will put that hive in my garden. Chris is intending, when we know there is a good queen in both the ALGS hives, to keep the colony he is nurturing in his garden. Of course, neither the Newbees nor the Apidia bees will be producing any honey for us to harvest this year – our focus will be to help them become strong enough to survive the coming winter when it is so difficult for them to forage for stores this summer.
Kate Macnish