Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[Barbara]

Hi Dusko

Yes, it is the same here. Mostly they will swarm around midday, but can start as early as 11am and go on till 3pm. It's very unusual to go beyond those parameters.
I usually see a reduction in pollen intake as the brood is capped and no new brood needs feeding. They do still bring it in, but there is a noticeable drop. I try to make a point of being at home in the garden as much as possible around lunchtime once we reach swarming season. I've just caught my 5th one.
Normally it is pretty much the hottest day of the year but this prolonged spell of cold windy weather after a warm April, means that they are having to come out regardless of the weather now.... cold, windy, showery.... they are not happy! The first prime delayed until they couldn't wait any longer, because the first cast came out only 4 days later! The swarm this morning should have been a prime by my reckoning but there were multiple small clusters in the tree and on two hives. Not sure if the blustery cold weather has caused them to lose coherence or I've missed the prime from that hive and this is a cast with multiple virgins. Nothing is quite as it should be this season so far, so I'm really saying, don't put your money on them following the norm.
Perhaps a benefit of this cool weather is that it will favour our native dark bees over those that prefer fine weather. I envisage a lot of virgin queens not mating successfully and bee populations may fall in general as a result but most of the successful ones should be with dark drones and therefore redress some of the genetic balance. Hopefully I won't have a problem as I have almost exclusively dark drones and perhaps this is why my cast swarms that I capture and hive almost always survive.

Anyway, I hope that helps a little in predicting when they will blow!

Good luck

Barbara

[Che Guebuddha]

Thanks Barbara. Will keep an open eye. I am every day in the apiary between 11-14h watching for the last 2 weeks. It's been a long watch. I hope they make a move in the next few days. Sunny and warm here from tomorrow

[Barbara]

Yes, that's a lot of waiting and anticipation!
It's due to warm up here for the next few days (and hopefully from there on!!) and I anticipate most of mine will swarm then, but of course the bees have been making these plans to swarm for over a month, so they can really only delay it a day or two by the time it gets to this stage.

My bees hardly ever swarm before June, so if anything I was taken a little by surprise a couple of weeks ago to come home and find my cherry sapling bent double with the weight of one. And then the first cast 4 days later when I thought I had at least 8 days before the next one. Thankfully it has all worked out remarkably well so far, as people are bringing me their bait boxes to put them in just ahead of the swarms emerging..... it's like they know there is a new home waiting for them! I haven't had any of them show direct interest in the bait hives though. I find it pretty rare for my bees to take up residence voluntarily in the apiary.

Hopefully your wait will be over this weekend.

[zaunreiter]

Bee foraging geranium: in slow motion

http://youtu.be/RWM8FFKWKKg

[ingo50]

Multiple swarms in early May here, the weather was rainy and they swarmed despite the poor conditions. They were from my National hives that were rammed with bees from a good wintering. They had obviously decided to swarm early this year as borne out by numerous reports from elsewhere in the UK.

[Che Guebuddha]

I have 2 extremely strong colonies after the winter in top bar hives and they have been flying strong all may yet still they are not swarming. I do see several scout bees checking one of my empty hives today maybe some neighboring hive has swarmed.

Sorry for hijacking your theread Bernhard

[ingo50]

Che are there reports of swarms elsewhere in your area yet?

[Che Guebuddha]

Only one two weeks ago which was a conventional hive. The guy kept removing queen cell but missed one

My bees are not manipulated except 2 shallow supers placed on top of them.

[Che Guebuddha]

My bees today

[zaunreiter]

Beekeeping without fear: teaching handling bees with a swarm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFzVEpzENwQ

[zaunreiter]

Scout bee Bernhard reports a field full of cornflowers! (Centaurea cyanus)
Waggle dance, waggle dance!

Now this is a very rare sight. A farmer did not spray and this is the result. Already put some bees there, cornflowers make excellent honey.

[zaunreiter]

Sweet chestnuts are about to bloom. This year the blossoms are superb, because the longer they are, the more nectar they give. In about ten days I'll move the bees into the deep sweet chestnut woods.

[zaunreiter]

What's going on?! Flight activity at 9 pm ...what's this? The pollen trap reveals, it is the blackberry that blossoms! Greyish pollen all over the trap!







Same apiary, but those hives did not want the blackberries...




Another observation that even if the hives are in one location, they forage sometimes on different plants.

Bees in cornflower show lots and heaps of activity, too, bees all over the cornflowers.

[zaunreiter]

My new bee clock:

[ingo50]

Excellent fotos, when the alarm goes off are you woken by a sting!

[zaunreiter]

Bees enjoy the cornflowers. The farmer grows his own fodder for his pig farm. Instead of soy food. Good man!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWVH8Uoe66o

[Che Guebuddha]

I wish I had such farmers around here. In my locality it's starting to be popular to grow seed grass for football stadiums in Brazil. Sprayed several times a season to keep bee-friendly weeds away. Huge fields with just sterile grass. The rest is sterile wheat, rape seed and oats. I will have to start winter feeding end of Jun/July already. That's how bad it's here. Now it's election time and most around here talk about the immigration issues yet very few talk about Danish nature being dead. Ignorance is deep

[zaunreiter]

What I said, you need to migrate your bees. My location doesn't look any better but there are some islands - or let's call them oases - in between.





Trapping pollen:




You can feed back the pollen in times of scarcity (summer, autumn, early spring) and when there is a lot of spraying going on outside the hives. And you can sell it for profit. One kilogramm sells for 25 €. (1 lbs for 14 US$)

Making use of other bee products adds on the profit of natural beekeeping, making up for the lesser honey harvests, especially when swarming is allowed. Also pollen is very reliable, nectar availability depends a lot on weather and all, while pollen is available under most conditions within the season. Also small colonies can make a lot of pollen, while they are poor honey foragers.

[zaunreiter]

Made a video on queen rearing. Making a starter hive with the Gatineau hive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tIjiXvJb50

[zaunreiter]

Filmed a solitary bee - one that has hair on her belly which she collects pollen with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2WfBBeknl8

[Che Guebuddha]

I think its an Osmia Mason bee. In the Swedish study recently done its shown that Osmia suffers more from Neonicotinoids than Honeybees because Honeybees can clean their body a bit throuhg wax production and this bee cant do so, so it totally reduces their amount of valid queens. Same is for the Bumblebees. I have lots of these on my farm. A very beautiful bee

[zaunreiter]

A friend (he is a professor working with bees) says, it should be a Megachile willughbiella.

Bees in the sweet chestnut. Hopefully this gonna be a good chestnut year 2015.

Female blossoms.




Male blossoms.


Good old handtruck saving me back pain.


Just need some sun next days and it can begin.

[zaunreiter]

Sweet chestnut trees are full of ladybug larvae...




Tons of ants in the trees, too.


And all over the trees: aphids...

[zaunreiter]

Some more of my roses:

[zaunreiter]

The sweet chestnuts are about to blossoming. Some slow motion, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da7eOsLxvJI

[andy pearce]

Bernhard
Just watched your queen rearing video.

Correct me if I am wrong.

You are starting a new hive

Is that fully drawn comb under that excluder?

You shake the bees in from a number of hives

You cought and caged the queens for other use

You checked the front of the hives that had another queen excluder on the front...presumably to stop any queen you missed getting into the hive. (Just in case there was more than one)

You then showed what looked like a Jenter bee rearing system with eggs layed into the plastic cups and then popped them into your queenless hive.

The queenless bees will draw these out into queen cells and then you have lots of new queens.

Will you be showing the next bit?

Someone I know is going to use an old fridge for the last part of the process after drawing out and capping. He is going to add a thermostat to keep the right temperature constant so that hatching day is very predictable. I have not seen him for a while so do not know the full details.

Any chance of following your German subtitles with English ones?

I still say you would not do that with my bees without a full suit!

[zaunreiter]

[zaunreiter]

I like the corn flowers.

Bees like it, too, and do profit from the rich food provision.


Tons of brood.


And a lot of delicious cornflower honey.

[zaunreiter]

Going to be another year of varroa I reckon'. I find a lot of varroas in the hives this year.

[zaunreiter]

Catching a swarm with the help of my "bee tractor"


Pluck the swarm bit by bit and dump it into a hive with some drawn comb.




Having fun while working bees. That's the way.