July… what a month! I now have six hives. I was going to call this blog “And Then There Were Six” when I saw I had entitled last month’s blog “And Then There Were Five” I’ve now run out of hives and have had to put the latest lot of bees into my Betsie Valentine Virtual Hive! Stop… now bees… please!

I’ve actually made up a song which I can’t get out of my head when I’m at the Apiary… Sing along if you like to the tune of “You’re The One That I Want”
“I got bees, they’re not complying
And I’m losing control
Coz my girls, they’re multiplying
It’s terrifying.
They better not swarm, coz I’m out of hives
And there is nothing I can do
They better not swarm
I can’t house no more and I haven’t got a clue
What to do anymore… (what to…) ooo ooo ooo
What to do anymore…(what to…) ooo ooo ooo
What to do…. with my bees!”

I think I have a hit on my hands there! Beekeepers around the country will be singing those lyrics for years to come during the swarming season!

And so, back to the apiary. Let me walk you through my hives.

As we are coming to the end of the season with the honeybees, I thought I’d walk you through the comings and goings of my hives throughout, what has been, a glorious spring and summer for my honeybees. Beekeepers around the country should now be harvesting the honey, topping up the bees with sugar syrup, if they feel they are short of stores, and treating for Varroa. All that should be done and dusted by early to mid-September, depending, of course, on where you live and what your bees are feasting on. For my bees, the main forage for them throughout the summer months has been: Field Beans, Heather, Thistle, White Clover, Blackberry, Raspberry and Michaelmas Daisy – of which there has been loads this year - Anything that they are now foraging on they can keep for themselves. They have the autumn Ivy to come and it’s always lovely to see the bees re-appear on a sunny autumn day and watch and listen to them foraging in amongst the Ivy. It gives a signal that all is well. Watch out for the photo’s!

From left to right… Hive No. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 4.

Hive No. 1 My last entry, for June, in my inspection notes read “Handle with care!” Shall we just say they’re very feisty bees in Hive No. 1 but feisty bees, they say, are good honey producers and this lot are living up to this wives tale, so, although not easy, as long as they’re weren’t stinging me I’ve let them get away with it. Therefore, each week in July has been spent - approaching the hive with care, a calm mind, good intention and a pair ‘go faster’ running shoes! They have filled three more supers since the spring so my decision not to replace the queen appears to have paid off. Until. Unti, that is, last Saturday when I lifted off the lid and they came at me from all directions, bottoms curled and stingers at the ready, no questions asked - simply on the attack. After uncalled for sting number 5 which whipped into my right knee from a kamikaze honeybee that appeared from no-where I decided to replace the supers I had covertly removed, put the lid back on and walk away. What to do? I now realised the queen’s time was up; a hive like that is impossible, unpleasant and frankly too scary - for me any way - and takes the pure joy of beekeeping. No amount of honey is worth being attacked by creatures I love with a passion. I had, by this time, in 32° heat, been in my bee suit for three hours and was not in the best of moods. I always leave Hive No. 1 till last as it’s such a mission and I was too hot and bothered to do anything about it. I closed it up and went home feeling a little defeated and deflated. I don’t like killing honeybees, especially queens and I felt I’d been fair all season. But you can’t rationalise with 60,000 honeybees who have a feisty queen! Having sat on it for a couple of days, I’ve come to the decision, for better or worse, having discussed this hive with a couple of fellow beekeepers, to leave the colony alone as it’s a strong one and therefore will more than likely survive the winter and tackle said queen in the spring when there are less bees in there! One of my fellow beekeepers told me she did this and when she had a similar hive and when she went in to the hive in the spring, the queen had had a personality change and everything was calm… So here’s hoping!

Hive No. 2 Originally a split hive from Hive No. 3. Split on the 2nd May and then by the 9th June the queen was laying. You have to be very patient as a beekeeper, this all takes time and just as your thinking it’s not going to work you look inside and there she is, a deliciously fat queen, eggs and brood! The worry always is that if you wait too long a worker bee will start to lay. This is a disaster as, worker bees only lay drones eggs which means eventually the entire colony will die out. If this happens you have to take the brood box quite a way away from the original position and shake the entire box of bees out on to a sheet. The flying bees will fly back to where the brood box was and will eventually go into the nearest hive. The house bees can’t fly yet so I’m afraid they are left to die. Why do you do this? Because you could never identify a laying worker, she’s never going to put her leg up and own up to it being her so all the house bees have to be sacrificed and by performing this drastic act you save half of your hive. I’m delighted to say this has only happened to me once in 10 years of beekeeping when I was a fairly new beekeeper and must have lost count of the weeks they had been without a queen and it certainly didn’t happen in this hive. However, as with all wild creatures, the course of true love is never straight forward. For some reason this queen took a good month to get going and just as I was thinking of removing her and uniting them with another hive, (I gave her one more week to prove her self), voila, she must have heeded my warning as the hive took off. I now have another lovely thriving colony to take through the winter… so alleluia to that!

Hive No. 3 This is a curious hive…. Back in May I had to split this hive because queen cells appeared. When queen cells appear you know your bees are going to swarm; they’ve either run out of space or they’re not happy with the existing queen. I decided, having consulted a beekeeper friend that instead of doing an artificial swarm I would split the hive, as it was heaving, and put the queen in a nuc, just incase the split didn’t work in one or both of the boxes. Hello Hive No. 5. One month later a new queen appears in Hive No. 3 and before I can rejoice in her arrival she takes off with half of my bees. Sometimes we beekeepers miss queen cells, they can be hard to spot especially when there are lots, and the next thing you know the queen takes off. It’s annoying and all you can do is hope that someone finds the swarm and re-hives them. But the bees get busy and build more queen cells and this week, once again a new queen arrives. Oh what glee what joy what bliss, she is laying…boom! But what’s this I see more queen cells? I can’t do an artificial swarm, firstly the bees are only covering 6 frames and secondly I’ve run out of hives so I’m afraid I removed the queen cells and I’m just hoping they don’t swarm again. If they haven’t swarmed next week and there are yet more queen cells I’ll remove the queen and unite the bees with another hive. Probably not a bad thing as I have six hives and only want four so it would go part way to resolving this pressing issue!

Hive No. 4 Ahhh… Hive No. 4 – my least troublesome hive this season! Began the year with a bit of a conundrum, the queen had escaped into the super and was laying eggs up there, of course; would have been very remiss of her not to. Found her and put her back down. Fortunately, after this odd start to the year, she stayed down, not sure how she got up there in the first place, she shouldn’t fit through the queen excluder but hey- ho, I’m not the first person who’s had that happen and won’t be the last. Ever since it’s been easy going. No swarming, no cross bees, always lots of lovely brood and they produced a super of honey in the Spring and a super in the summer, so cannot complain. Good girlies. Another strong hive to take through the winter.

Hive No. 5 This hive is an artificial swarm from Hive No. 1 in June. It produced a beautiful queen who I accidentally squished while attempting to mark her. I’d been to see a fellow beekeeper, socially distancing of course, once lock-down was eased, to collect some bits he had for me and he showed me this amazing “queen catcher and marker” that he absolutely swore by as it was so easy to use. I immediately went home and bought one on the internet. So, when I spotted my lovely new queen I was very excited for all of about 10 seconds when as I closed it up to trap the queen inside I accidentally trapped her in the mechanism that closes her in. I was devastated. Doing something as careless as this is genuinely heart wrenching. Poor queen, poor bees, now they had to wait another 4 – 6 weeks before they would get a laying queen again. I totally blame myself. I have used the queen cacther again since and was far more careful when closing the door and it worked beautifully. As it happened, that day I was splitting Hive No. 3 so instead of getting rid of the excess queen cells, I took a frame which had the excess queen cells on, gently brushed off the bees and gave it to my bereft bees. I did this as had I have left it to the bees it would take 9 days from egg to capped queen cells, so giving them a closed queen cell and an open queen cell would obviously speed up the process for the bees. Fortunately, this was a full colony of bees and survived the trauma without depleting too much in number and this week, during my inspection I saw the new queen and lots of glorious eggs and brood. I feel a little exonerated and very happy for my bees.

Hive No. 6 This hive is originally a Nuc from splitting Hive No. 3. The queen was kept just in case the split didn’t work. If you save the queen, by putting her in a nuc, (a small brood box), with a frame of nurse bees, frame of brood and stores, if the split doesn’t work and one of the hives (or both) don’t produce a queen you still have the old queen. I know, that’s a tough one to follow! Even I have to think about that as I type…. Well the split hive worked (Hive 3 and 4) and that produced Hive No. 6 which I’m currently looking for a home for as I don’t want 6 hives. Too many for me. It’s a hobby!

And so we bring ourselves up to date and I’m mid removing the supers to spin. While I’m removing them, I’m having to be very careful as the wasps are out in abundance now and of course they love a beehive. They don’t just rob the beehive of all the honey, they kill all the bees in the process. It’s a sad and sorry sight. This has only ever happened to me once, it was a weak hive and stood no chance against the determined wasps. It taught me a lesson. Instead of being sentimental about a queen and/or selfish and wanting the weak hive to expand, it is better to remove the queen and unite the weak hive with a strong hive to give the bees more of a chance. You can always pass the queen on to someone who needs one and there’s always a beekeeper somewhere who’s looking for a queen. I know, I’ve been that beekeeper! So, I surround my hives with wasp catchers, which are simply contraptions I make out of plastic bottles and fill at the bottom with cheap jam and a little water. The wasps will go for that first as it’s an easier target than the hive. I also put a long strip of perspex across the entrance of each hive at an angle. This creates a corridor for the honeybees to walk along in order to leave the hive, thus making it difficult for a wasps to get in as they are faced with a host of honeybees coming towards them. Also, I’m told it disorientates the wasp as they don’t like narrow walk ways. I may have made that bit up! Anyway, it works! The other thing beekeepers do to stop invading wasps is reduce the entrance to the hive giving the honeybees a greater chance of defending their hives.

Drones going in and out of the Hive.

A couple of weeks ago I witnessed something I’ve never seen before at my apiary or anyone’s for that matter, and that is, drones coming and going from Hive No. 3. I knew, when I saw this, that by the following week both Hive No’s 3 and 4 would have laying queens; both hives had opened queen cells in them the week before and it was clear to me the drones were off to mate with one or both! Provided nothing disastrous happened to the queens on their return to the hives from mating, the following week I should see fat queens, eggs and brood. Drones only ever leave the hive to mate with queens. Those that succeed, I’m afraid, die, but they die feeling proud, having performed their one and only duty and those that don’t mate with the queen return to the hive to spend the rest of their days poddling around eating the stores! Hence, they are fewer in number than the worker bees as once they have or haven’t performed their duty, their work is done. Nature knows this and the queen, therefore produces less drone eggs than worker eggs. The drones make up 10% of the colony and at this time of year they’re gradually dying out. Those that don’t die, I’m afraid nature can be ruthless, as we all know, and by September the Workers kick them out as they are taking up valuable space and eating their much-needed stores.

Another first, in my 10 years of beekeeping, is the discovery of the Rhombus Bee-escape. Oh yes dear friends, oh yes indeed. For years I’ve struggled with bee-escapes that have NEVER worked for me. I find myself brushing off upset and confused house bees and annoying the flying bees and it’s a whole performance. Last year, at the National Honey Show, I bought a Rhombus bee-escape and oh my dear sweet Lord, it works! When you want to remove the supers, you need the bees to go back down into the brood box, so you put on bee-escapes, which are a one way system, the bees go down and they can’t get back up. That’s the theory. It’s never worked for me before the appearance, in my life, of the Rhombus and it is indeed a deep joy momemt. Pick up super and go. Maybe one or two stragglers but that is all. If Rhombus would like to sponsor me and Betsie Valentine, I will mention them in every blog I do from now on and in every conversation I have about honeybees!

On that joyous note I shall leave you all and thank you once again for following my monthly blog.

Remember, the honeybees have been with us for 100 million years. Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist philosopher, used the beehive to demonstrate the flaws of humans and human nature. Pliny used the beehive to highlight human failings. The bees show that it is not inevitable that society should be dominated by faction and the self-interest of a few. He focused on the bees ability to manage on their own for the good of the hive, and believed human society could and should function under a similar capacity. Pliny believed the social complexity and order of bees afforded them a position superior to humans.

I find that hard to argue with.

Enjoy your summer. Lockdown is easing, but keep your distance and stay safe. See you next month.

THEY BETTER NOT SWARM!