BBC News

There was a article in the BBC News today about bees and colony collapse disorder. Here's the link if you are interested....

Swarminess

I checked the combo hive today. Those bees are swarmy! They have about 10 frames now, and I'd say 1/2 of them had queen cups! They have plenty of space--I've been giving them a couple of frames a week--so I'm not sure what's driving them to swarm. I'm trying to decide what do to; split or not split. The problem is that I don't particularly want more bees. I'm going to sleep on it.

Al (my dad) recently built two TBHs with his friends, Don and Paul. They caught a swarm today and put it into one of the TBHs. I can't wait to check that hive out!

Bees on the Move

We moved the TBH to the new house today! I was surprised to find that I felt much more at home in the new house as soon as the bees moved in.

An English Apiary

I stumbled across my first English apiary the other day on a walk in the countryside between Micklover and Radbourne. There were seven hives in a circle beneath a group of trees with a wrought iron fence securing them all inside. Only one of the hives actually seemed inhabited but those bees had a meadow of wild flowers to work on. I'm not very good at spotting the different breeds of bees yet but they weren't blond like Alan's Italians or dark like his Russians. They were similar to Jessica's Carniolans but smaller and maybe be a smidge darker. Not sure if anyone can work anything out from that.....

Here's a photo of the beehives under the trees:

Digressing from beehives, I particularly liked the house to the right of the beehives:

Here's a closer shot of the red brick house, with its high pitched roof and patterned slate work, its fancy white eves, and its non-square window to keep Jessica's dad happy. It's a beaut. 

Digressing further, if you're tastes in real estate are a little grander then Radbourne Hall at the summit of the hill opposite might suite you better:

More Bees - The Tawny Mining Bee

I spotted this cute little bee in my mum's back garden the other day. After a little research, it looks like it's a Tawny Mining Bee:

Apparently the Tawny Mining Bee is solitary bee, meaning that does all of its nest building, food collection, and brood rearing on its own. It burrows or 'mines' into the ground to forms a nest. I haven't spotted one of those yet but here's a shot taken from the web:

Honeybee Graveyard

I spent some time poking around in the debris left under the Old Hive and Split today. It made me think of a honeybee graveyard. There were tons of pollen loads--mostly in shades of yellow, but I also found some gray, lavender and red pollen. The pollen was accompanied by countless dead mites, lots of bee poop, bee legs, dried bits of plants, cappings from cells, and the remains of some kind of cocoon. The pollen will be interesting to look at under magnification. 

Pollen loads from under the split.

There were some bees poking around as well. Most just took a cursory look, but a couple wandered around with their proboscis' out, and one looked like it was trying to collect the pollen loads. Others seemed to be wondering where their homes had gone. 

Update

Alan's nuc:
I think the brood I saw last time was 'mature' worker brood because this time I saw a worker bee emerging from one of the capped cells, but otherwise, there is no brood, and I'm thinking this hive is queenless. I don't see any signs of a replacement queen in the works or a recently hatched queen.

Martin's swarm:
Both of the deeps are about 60-70% full of drawn out comb with some honey. I saw a lot of drones hanging around too--some of them are really light colored. I didn't see a lot of brood, but I did see two queen cups and one recently vacated supercedure cell. How do I know it was recently vacated? I found the new queen--she looked virginal to me--on the second to last frame. Martin uses plastic foundation, and she was wandering around on a bit that had not yet been covered in wax. I will check for eggs and larva in the next two to three weeks and split the hive as soon as I can.

TBH: These gals are drawing out the comb beautifully. The last three top bars are almost completely drawn out. The first one is about a fifth of the way drawn out, so I added an empty top bar to the inside of it. I found the queen on the second-to-last comb. She is long, slender and completely black! Lots of brood, but not incredibly regular. I uncorked another entrance hole in the hive to give them more space to get in and out.

I'm going to wait until tomorrow to check the combo hive.