Welcome to my April blog. Never have I been so busy with my bees at this time of year! It’s been a very dry, and at times, warm April and my honeybees have certainly been making the most of it. Normally the queen is well underway laying her eggs and the hives are expanding rapidly, but mine have gone the extra mile and decided their hives, (all four of them), are already over crowded and have been busying themselves building sumptuous queen cells. Hence, my last visit to the hives was spent splitting three of the hives and giving a swarm, which happened while I was there, to a fellow friend and beekeeper. (See ‘Swarming Honeybees’ video).

Now, honeybees swarm for all sorts of reasons. It could be because they have an old or damaged queen who isn’t laying very well, a queen that’s gone missing, (she’s either died or flown off - the latter is unlikely), or, the colony, as a whole, has decided to reproduce. Of course, the colony is reproducing all of the time as the queen, during the spring and summer months, lays about 2,000 eggs a day. However, sometimes if the hive gets too crowded it acts as a ‘living organism’ and up to half of the hive takes off with the queen to make way for a new one to take over, thus one colony becomes two.

As a beekeeper, normally May and June are the months you are looking out for signs of swarming, but this year it’s happened at my apiary very early on.

“What are the signs of swarming?” Queen cells. That’s it… sounds simple doesn’t it. Well, it’s not so simple! When you spot queen cells in your hive, once you’ve figured out why they’re there, if it’s because of over-crowding - you do a swarm control split. But of course the bees don’t just make one queen cell, they make lots and as a beekeeper, before you split the hive you have to do two things.

(a) Choose a queen cell to keep in the hive (some beekeepers keep more than one).

(b) Make sure, once you’ve made your decision, you remove all the others!

“How do the bees make a queen cell?” I hear you cry… Any female egg, in a colony of honeybees, can develop into a queen depending on her diet. At first all bee larvae are fed royal jelly, which is a milky, jelly-like substance produced in the head glands of ‘nurse’ bees. Royal jelly is composed of approximately two-thirds water, one-eighth proteins, 11 per cent simple sugars, small quantities of Vitamin C and various trace minerals and enzymes.

After three days, the worker bees are no longer fed royal jelly, their diet is changed to a mixture of pollen, nectar and honey called bee bread. However, the larvae chosen to become queens are fed only royal jelly for the remainder of their lives. Although genetically the same as a worker bee, the queen differs greatly. She is larger than a worker bee and behaves in a very different way. A worker bee lives for up to 6/7 weeks and dies if it uses its sting and a queen bee can live for up to 5 years and can use her sting repeatedly. This is all due to epigenetics : the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself. Too scientific? I’ll leave it there! See images below.

1. Eggs of a worker bee © Meriet Duncan

2. Worker brood © Meriet Duncan

3. Making of a queen cell © Clare/Curbstone Valley Farm

4. Royal jelly and queen larvae © Nicolas Geant

5. Queen cell © Rusty/Honeybee Suite

6. Queen and worker bees © Hilary Kearney

Below is a video I made of one of the swarm control splits that I did. Needless to say, I wasn’t expecting to be doing this in April so it’s and impromptu video made on my iphone. I hope you can see enough to get an idea of how it’s done!

What else has been happening in April? Well, my farrier asked if he could buy some wax blocks from me as he uses wax in a product he makes up for horses hooves. I don’t know what the product is, I’ll ask him and let you know next month when he’s been and shod my horse! Below are some images of the process.

1. Gently melt the large blocks of wax. I do this in the simmering oven of my Aga.

2. Sieve the melted wax into a clean container to remove any impurities.

3. Pour into silicone moulds.

4. Leave to completely harden et voilà - 1oz wax moulds.

And yes, I do sell the blocks of wax… contact me through this website if you would like any.

When I visit my apiary, I have to cross a little stream. On the other side of the stream I tread very carefully as, on a warm day, you can see the water carriers collecting the water for their hives. They always make me smile. (See video).

Now I know in the last blog I said I would take you through a shook swarm. However I’ve not had a chance to do one as the bees forced me into splitting the hives and therefore the old queens are now all in new hives on fresh comb anyway! The old hives, that now have the queen cells in, I have to leave alone for a few weeks until the new queen is born and has been mated. This whole process takes up to 5 weeks. So, I need to take advice as to when and how to replace the old comb they are currently on. I’ll keep you posted in next months blog on that one.

And so it is that I come to the end of the April blog. What a month! Unusually, well actually to be honest, a complete first for me, I’ve spun off some honey and, as I type, it’s only the 28th April! I’ve done this because (a) the original four supers were full and mostly capped and (b) the Rape Seed is now in flower and the bees will be gorging on that. I need the original supers as I now have 7 hives and I wanted to separate the early spring honey from the rape. There may be a few tuts around in the beekeeping world when they read what I’ve done but they had already started filling second supers. Meanwhile, as I now have 7 hives I need all the supers I can get and will clearly have to buy some more.

One more thing before I leave you; I’ve had to change my honey labels because if you are selling your honey through a third party the labels have to meet certain criteria, one being your address, so you can be traced and the Lot No.

I’ve also changed the name of my honey to “Corn Mill Honey” because at the apiary, just across the stream, there’s a very old Mill (see the picture below) which I discovered was used for grinding corn and I thought this image I took would make a nice label and of course it has a connection to my apiary.

Also below is a picture of the first jar of honey from Herefordshire…. I love the golden reflection on the wall, no wonder they call it liquid gold…

And so, thank you once again for reading my blog, I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I love doing it for you.

If you have any questions at all about honeybees • If you’d like me to visit your school, community, business and give a talk about our wonderful honeybees • If you'd like to buy a copy of my book “Betsie Valentine And The Honeybees” a wonderful and beautifully illustrated adventure that takes you and your children through the life cycle and importance of the honeybees, click on the contact page or shop book.

Finally… Before I end this eventful April blog I’ll leave you with my thoughts as I left the apiary on Friday 23rd April, having been there for nearly 5 hours!

Have a wonderful May!