Apollo 13

Perhaps you are old enough to remember the radio blackout during re-entry as the crew of Apollo 13 returned from their aborted lunar mission in 1970, which lasted 87 seemingly interminable seconds longer than the roughly 4 minutes expected.  

 

Maybe you recall the feeling of helplessness - there was nothing to do except wait.  

 

Or perhaps you recall holding your breath for that bit of the 1995 film.

 

Well, that sensation of helpless waiting is being experienced by many beekeepers this year as they wait to find out whether their new queens have returned successfully from their mating flights.

 

All bees start out as eggs laid in wax cells.  Eggs that turn into queens are no different except they are laid in special queen cells and fed a diet rich in royal jelly.   Queen eggs turn into larvae; fat, white, Michelin man grubs after 3 days and, after being well fed for 6 days, they are sealed in to their queen cells for a further 6 days.  When they emerge they have to fly out of the hive to a place where drones (or as our nephew says, kings) congregate in order to mate.    After mating the queen returns and starts laying.

 

This year, inclement weather has prevented newly hatched virgin queens from heading out on their mating flights.

 

We were on the point of despair with the nucleus we set up earlier with brood and nurse bees from the prolific G Bees.  We thought that, as beginner beekeepers, we had just got it wrong.  So, it was with complete astonishment that, at the most recent inspection, we observed clearly visible eggs, nice fat white larvae and sealed brood.  Hooray! We have a queen laying in that colony even though we haven't seen her.  Now we just need to ensure that she and her bees are adequately fed until the colony has enough foragers to sustain it.

 

Since Queen Joan went missing we haven't seen any eggs, larvae or sealed brood in the G Bees' colony.  Three sealed queen cells were left in the colony and all queens appear to have hatched but the first, or the strongest, of those will have despatched the other two.   We have been waiting what seems like an eternity for evidence of a laying queen.   This isn't helped by the fact I lost my varifocals about the time that Queen Joan disappeared and I wasn't sure whether there weren't any eggs or I just couldn't see them.  Last weekend we even started to make enquiries about buying in a queen.  As a result:

 

a) We were reminded that it can take 3 weeks for a queen to mate and start laying;
 

b) We learnt that we are not the only beekeepers experiencing a long queenless period this year.  This is because it has been unseasonably cold, windy and wet at the wrong times and that left  the queens struggling to get out;   
 

c) We have to wait another week before we can be sure that we don't have a queen.

 

We've got to hold our breath helplessly for  a few more long days! 

 

The S Swarm And Liquid Gold Update 2

 

After two weeks the oil seed rape honey has set really solid.    As you can see from the curl of honey on the spoon in this photograph, when you scoop it out it resembles a wood shaving produced by carving.  The colour is almost white but it is deliciously floral and still creamy when you eat it, albeit with just a hint of granularity.   I don't particularly like honey but this is scrumptious.

oooOOOooo

 

I missed a call from Sue last week reporting a swarm of bees in a flower bed outside the main door of her office building.

Luckily, she called Dad too and he went out straight away with the swarm gear to take a look.

Swarm gear:
straw skep (or carboard box)
beekeeper's suit, gloves, wellies
large sheet
smoker
board
saw and/or loppers (for cutting branches)
water spray
brick (for propping up skep/cardboard box)

He found a small swarm on flowers low down near the main office door.   It was in an awkward position as he couldn't get his skep under the bees.   Instead of dropping them in to the skep, he had to prop the skep slightly above the bees and try to use smoke to encourage them to crawl up inside.

Unfortunately, this didn't work, so wearing all his gear as a precaution, he scooped as many bees as he could with both hands, depositing them gently in the skep.   Then he inverted the skep wedging it up on one side with a brick (which was part of the swarm kit), covered the whole thing including the rest of the swarm outside the skep with a large plastic sheet because it was raining and he left them overnight.

It was a relatively cold and blustery night.   The next morning he returned before breakfast to find all the bees had crept into the warm, dark and cosy skep so he tied it in the sheet and took the bees back to the out apiary at the farm.

As the weather wasn't clement enough to prop the skep up on the ground outside the hive and let the bees walk up a board into a clean hive*, he shook them in to the top of an empty hive and left them to settle in.   They were furnished with some empty frames in the brood chamber and a couple of frames of stores.  By the afternoon they were starting to fly around the hive to orient themselves.   This will be Queen Sue and the Sue Bees if they choose to stay with us.

 

* It is my ambition to watch bees process up into a hive - everyone who has seen it tells me it is really a magical sight to behold.

 

oooOOOooo

 

Queen Joan hasn't been seen for two inspections.  

 

Last year we didn't see Queen G ever but I saw Queen Joan when I marked her and the week after that so to miss her for two weeks is a bit of a concern.   It's entirely possible that she has left the hive with a small swarm but, quite honestly, it's not obvious because the colony is so large.

 

Keep reading for more news........