Unexpected results

Again, contrary to the weather forecast it brightened up yesterday afternoon so I decided to get in and have a look at what they were up to. Having had to replenish the feeder three times this week I hoped they were doing something for their syrup. I had placed a varroa board in under the mesh floor on Monday to see what the level of mite infestation was, I had pulled it out on Wednesday to have a quick shifty but could only see one mite so replaced it. Well I pulled it out yesterday, expecting to see loads but again there were only two on the whole board one of which was alive and scurried off! There was also a dead bee, a decapitated head, some pollen and lot of wax shards but only two mites! Surely that can't be right can it? Can the mites crawl or get blown away? I've looked but can't find the answer. Maybe look into some Vaseline or sparymount or something, obviously something with no insecticides in it, that would be silly! Anyway, due to the lack of Varroa evidence, I shall not worry too much and just go through the routine Apiguard dosing in a couple of weeks time, which reminds me, I don't have an eke, EEEEk!

After opening up the hive I was encouraged to see they had definitely increased in size and there does now appear to be activity on all but the outer 2 or 3 frames. As it was sunny by this point I was hoping that the majority of them would be off foraging but it seemed me girls wanted to wait and say hello which many of them did, repeatably against my head! A few puffs of bee tobacco and they gave up and went down like the nice well mannered ladies I hope to encourage. They are still a small colony which too be honest is good for a novice like me, I can build up confidence whilst they hopefully build up numbers. I went through the hive fairly quickly checking for usual, any sign of disease or disorder? None. All capped brood was tidy, all uncapped was healthy looking, no signs of disease. Checked for signs of laying but didn't see any but as this queen seems to favour these inner frames and all but the wire line cells having something in, either capped or uncapped I assume she is up to her old tricks as the colony was calm. They had started to draw the outer frames and two sides were filled with stores so I think this queen will be sticking to these 5 inner frames for the remainder of the season. They are still producing a lot of brace comb but it's no biggie, they could be doing much worse things. There is some drone comb on the bottom of some of the frames but she ain't laying in this so I can't think what they are doing. No queen cells though.

I guess that's it for this week, need to make up and paint another hive as may swap them into that one over winter as this one is getting a bit old and needs a bit of TLC, I also want to get them onto a stand before long, I may as well do that whilst disrupting them with a house swap.

Not the busiest of bees

Did a very quick inspection of me gals yesterday, conditions weren't idea, a bit windy and there was damp in the air but I needed to check their progress and ensure that they were doing something. I had to be quick as they weren't too happy about it, too many bees in the hive not out foraging. To be honest, they haven't really progressed since the last inspection but the weather hasn't been great so that could explain it. They have still only managed to draw out the 6 frames. I haven't seen the queen yet but as there are eggs, capped and uncapped brood so I can be sure she is present and even if not the busiest of creatures is active. I checked for queen supercedure (peanut shaped cells, more usually hanging down from middle of frames) and swarm cells (usually hanging off the bottom of the frame) and as there are none I can only assume the colony is happy enough with her and aren't looking to get shot of her yet. The colony would supercede the queen with a newer model if she was getting to the end of her useful life and was failing. They are apparently good for 3 years or so from mating but as I got this colony as a swarm from an unknown location I have no idea how old she is. I also checked for any sign of disease, all cell cappings looked perfect, no pitting or raggety holes. All the uncapped brood looked healthy too. The only oddity was that on a couple of frames they had chewed through from one side to the other on one or two cells, not sure why they have done that, will research.

As usual, my saviour Maureen suggested I do a check for Varroa Mite  levels within the colony. Since its emergence in the UK around 1992, the varroa mite is now present in most, if not all colonies and if not controlled can weaken a colony to the point of collapse, there are various methods for keeping levels manageable so that the colony can thrive. I'll put in the board under the mesh floor, leave it for a few days and then count the mites that have dropped on the floor. If levels are within tolerant levels I will need to look elsewhere for the issue but I suspect Maureen may be right and the levels may be high in which case I'll take steps. Not sure what yet, should have treated them when we hived the colony and there was no brood but didn't know then what I know now. Ho hum we live and learn :-D

Logic prevails. Yay!

Friday brought about enough of a break in the weather to get my 4th hive inspection done. I was a little bit more laid back about finding the queen and getting her marked , being more interested in what they were up to. After the realisation that I had stupidly installed a random mix of drone and worker foundation in my brood box and that it was probably this school girl error that had halted the progress of the drawing out, I was relieved to find on today's inspection that swapping the drone foundation frame with a new worker frame had encouraged the poor little confused gals to start drawing it out and hopefully my fickle queen may deign to lay in this. Having seen that this tactic worked, I swapped out the other end too, am really hoping they get the idea and forgive me for my stupid error but if not I am resigned to not getting any honey this year and just ensuring I get them strong enough to successfully over winter.

The following is a very heavily edited vid of the inspection, the unedited version is 26 minutes long. At 9 minutes it is still interminably dull but I would appreciate the more experienced amongst you (i.e. everyone) to criticise anything you see that I'm doing drastically wrong.

School girl errors

After the disappointment of Wednesdays inspection, I followed the advice I'd been given by various kind souls. Don't panic, leave it for a few days and it'll probably sort itself. So I shut up the hive on Wednesday and ignored it until this evening. What do know, all is not lost after all.

Popped in today, was only going to take off the super frames (still not sure what I was thinking), replace the crown board and feeder and maybe have a quick look. After a few puffs of bee tobacco they went straight down, no fuss no bother. I noticed some young ones about so thought I'd check the state of the empty cells and there they were, fresh eggs, perfectly placed dead centre in the empty and tidily cleaned out cells. So my queen is still there. Read up on @beesinfrance's blog and my bee bible today about laying workers so fairly certain it is the queen and not the workers. So that's good news but why aren't they drawing put the empty frames to make more space for her to lay? Still got 6 virtually untouched frames in the brood box so what's their problem? Plenty of feed and forage, they seem content enough, rather placid in fact, I can only assume that they just don't like the foundation wax in the frames. When I had a closer look at the ones they had drawn and the ones they haven't it dawned on me that the foundation in the untouched frames has larger than normal cell print on it so is in fact drone foundation.This may explain why they are ignoring it, I'll swap these frames for some fresh and keep my fingers crossed that this will kick them into action. Time is marching on and we need to build up the size of the colony for it to have a chance of surviving the winter let alone giving me some honey which is looking extremely unlikely at this juncture. On another matter, the brood box is supposed to be 11 frames, again, not a clue what I was thinking. Am coming to the conclusion that this blog is outing me as a complete idiot! I may have to stop posting all my silly mistakes just to keep some level of respectibility!

Update - Having this morning swapped the offending frames out, I will leave them bee for a while and keep my fingers crossed that they'll get on with it. Next time I go in I will find that queen or possibly die trying!

2nd inspection

I was determined to get into the hive again this week to see what was going on and to make a concerted effort to get the queen marked before all the new bees emerged and the colony increased in size. After talking with Maureen and Jim last night, I was even more determined as they told tales of a couple of their newly hived swarms covering the majority of the brood frames in just a couple of weeks. Forecast for today was sunshine and showers so I was not hopeful I would get the opportunity. At about 12 the weather looked like it would hold for a couple of hours so I took my chances and popped up to the allotment to get in there. I remembered to take the queen marking cage, the marker and the icing sugar shaker along with the special bee tobacco I had been given for the smoker.

All tooled up I went in. They had brace combed up the feeder again so this needed to come off and they had fully propolised the mesh on the open hole on the crown board. I got the crown board off, not too sticky and I remembered to twist gently and lift rather than just yank it off. After checking that there was no queen on the underside, I put it to one side. Well, I have to say I was a little disappointed to see that there had been no further activity in the hive since last inspection, 8 days since. The five central frames that they had drawn out last week were still the only ones drawn. I went through each of the five frames looking for the queen and indeed any activity to signify that she was present. Nada. The majority of the brood that we observed last week has been capped, there are no eggs or young larvae present so I am guessing that she hasn't been around for a good 8 days which coincidentally was when I did my last inspection. This leads me to believe that I must have done something to her during that inspection or that she buggered off before that inspection with the majority of the colony and I didn't notice any reduction in size as it was my first look see last week. BUT there are no queens cells. If they had swarmed before last week's inspection there would have been queen cells. If I had killed the queen last week the workers should be raising one or more of the fertilised eggs as an emergency queen. It's possible I guess that she's gone off the lay as it were but surely the colony wouldn't stand for this and would supercede her. I'm flummoxed but not panicking just yet. I closed the hive back up but instead of putting the crown board on top of the brood box put on the queen excluder and framed up the super. Why I did this I have no idea. I shall have another look in a few days time to see is the situation has changed, by then some of the capped brood may well be emerging which may egg ('scuse the pun) things on a bit.

Have just twigged that I possibly should have 12 frames in my brood box rather than the 11 that are there, this obvious boo boo may explain the amount of brace comb I'm getting in the hive. This along with the upside down crown board error last week would, I guess be violating the 'bee space' rules and therefore encouraging the dears to build comb in appropriate places. My problem is that I am using second hand frames which are a mix of hoffman style and flat sided, I've got those little plastic spacers on them but I don't think the spacing is right. When I inspect again in a few day time I'll be taking my ruler to check if that is indeed the problem. In the meantime, anyone got a spare queen ;-)

A bit of housekeeping

After sitting and watching the bee's flight patterns I was beginning to get a little concerned that they were only getting to about 4ft before making a beeline for the blackberry flowering on a fence three plots over from mine. In the middle of these plots, directly in their path, Bob tends his ever growing sunflower forest. Bob is a good 6ft 6in so was in imminent danger of getting a bee up his nose. The allotment beekeeping guidelines suggest screening the hives to a height of 6 ft in order to force the bees to fly up and out rather than straight over, it seems they will always take the path of least resistance to conserve energy, makes sense. So with this in mind and considering my legendary (in my own head) womble like approach to the whole allotmenting thing i.e. "making good use of the things that we find....." I started rootling around for something suitable to use as screening, I didn't really want to buy anything (see womble like comment) but after seeing Mrs Dobby's allotment beekeeping blog and how they had screened theirs I decided that was the way forward. I'd seen some reed screening in one of the local bargain shops but hadn't checked the price, I assumed it would be out of my price range but scurried off to have a look see. Result! 2 x 6ft x 3m for £18.00. Just ideal to screen off the open side and make the fence side prettier. Back to allotment with my booty, by then it was late afternoon on a very sunny and blustery Saturday, the bees were still flying but I thought I could get in there and get the screening up without protection. I thought wrong. It turns out if you suddenly stick up a screen in front of the hive they get confused and not a little bit cross with the nearest moving big thing (me). With the screen half up I decided to guy-rope like secure the rest of it and beat a hasty retreat to the pub! When I returned the next morning, all was calm and I finished the job off with no drama what so ever. Screening now up and secure I feel happier that Bob won't be inhaling any of my girls. The added benefit is that I can now pick and weed the raspberries and watch the hive entrance through the screening but I can no longer sit on my sofa and watch them coming and going. Ups and downs, the worlds full of them.

1st solo inspection

Despite Maureen's best efforts to dissuade me I undertook my first allotment hive inspection yesterday afternoon going solo. It went well but there is a lot of stuff I missed and after watching the video there are a couple of things I did wrong but nothing critical.

First up was dealing with the brace comb the daft lasses had built through the crown board escape hole into the feeder. It came away easily enough aided by a little leverage with the hive tool but what to do with the bees inside? They refused to come out so I put it to one side on a handy pallet leaving the escape hole free so they could get out if they eventually chose to do so. Next the crown board.

I thought it'd be well stuck down what with their perpencity to building the comb willy nilly but it came off easily giving me my first look at the brood frames. My initial reaction was disappointment, they had only managed to draw the inner 5 frames, leaving the outer 6 untouched. Then I remembered that they had only been at it 12 days and on flat foundation at that so maybe their efforts weren't bad. Next was to look for signs of laying and try and spot the queen. I removed an outer frame and gently slid the inners out to get access to the first drawn frame. This one was drawn on the inner side and was filled with stores and pollen. Judging by the mix of colours they are getting a good range of forage and not just favouring one source. I imagine this is more usual in urban hives where there are no huge fields of one source. Will be interesting to compare with other local but slightly further out of town hives. Well, back to the inspection. No dry cells, so no laying on this frame. Next frame, fully drawn both sides and bingo! Excellent signs of laying, good brood pattern, lots of uncapped larvae both newly hatched and fairly mature yet not capped so under 8/9 days old I guess.

There are probably some eggs in there too but I'm fairly sure with my rubbish 40+ eyesight it'll be a cold day in hell before I spot them! What a relief, the queen is doing her job well and hopefully, within a couple of weeks we'll have lots of new bees. On the next frame we have some capped brood which is pretty amazing considering the timeframe. Now I am impressed! More to follow.........

Bees don't like wind

Nipped up to the allotment this morning for the normal watering and weeding session before breakfast, it was another sunny day but the wind was coming straight off the Pennines, down the valley and smashing into my little plot like the proverbial tempest. We are lucky to have the bottom, corner plot of a fairly exposed south west sloping allotment site. the wind therefore doesn't generally have too much of a serious impact on the plot. The greenhouse does usually get blown two foot down the hill during each winter storm though. First job on the allotment each year has been to re site it back up the hill, I really should stop bothering, it's become a bit of a Sisyphean task. Hmmm.

We'd finished the watering and weeding when the wind really started gusting quite alarmingly. First one pane blew out of the greenhouse, it was already cracked so I wasn't too alarmed. Decided it may be better to close it up to stop the gusts blowing through it. Then all the screening around the bees blew free of its tether, billowing about like something out of the Wreck of the Hesperus, a couple of pallets, cable ties and a good few rocks sorted that out. To complete that task I had to get within a few feet of the entrance to the hive, understandably the bees were a bit pee'd off anyway, to be confronted with a small person chucking big bits of wood and rock about didn't seem to improve their mood any. Got a few warning buzzes in the ear but bless them, they didn't attack which was a relief as I didn't have any protection with me! Note to self, keep a cheap smock and veil in the allotment shed for future mishaps. Just then another pane from the greenhouse blew out with such force I decided it was be better for our health to quickly check the bees feed, top up if necessary and beat a hasty retreat.

Whilst I was in the super, I took a couple of shots of the rapid feeder, something a bit strange is going in there. I don't know if it's something the bees have done or it's just sugar crystals that have formed through the syrup evaporating but the bees seem to be munching on that rather than drinking the syrup. It wasn't there yesterday so I must ask next time I see the bee guys. Anyway, they are still flying well despite the weather so I won't worry too much. Maybe if they do have such a sweet tooth the may like a less dilute solution.

Update: Bumped into the Extrodinary Rooneys into the pub this evening, the white stuff is brace comb, appently one of their colonies had done similar things in one of their feeders.

Nothing to report

Spent a good three hours at the allotment this morning, looked in on the bees, they are still doing whatever it is they are doing inside the hive. A small clump were in the feeder but still not guzzling the syrup. It is beginning to get a bit mouldy around the bit that's exposed to the air so may whip it out at some point soon, give it a good clean, recharge it and replace. Not sure how to get the bees out of it first though, that could be fun. May be it's better left, will ask. They are still going mad for the blackberry flowers, as the picture above shows. Yes! that's one of my little ladies, say hello!

Well as it's only been a week I shouldn't delve in too deep into the hive to have a look, I may wait for a sunny afternoon next week, get me suit on and have a very quick shifty, just to make sure they are drawing the comb at the very least. If I can spot any signs of laying, and/or spot the queen that would be a bonus but I think that'll be a goal for the following week. I still haven't got my queen spotting eye in, I even have a spot of bother spotting the ones that are clearly marked but I'm told that comes with practice, must get a pair of bifocals, that would probably help.

The day after the afternoon before

Well I'm happy to report that I still have bees, they seem quite content where they are, are doing everything they should and so far appear happy about me being there every now and then, pottering about and watering fairly near the hive entrance. I was concerned that they weren't getting enough of the syrup I have been giving them, I've heard and read that some newly hived swarms get through litres of the stuff, mine are doing a 100ml a day if that but there is always a little clump of bees there when I check. Slightly less concerned after a conversation with Bee Mentor Maureen yesterday and the fact that they are a small colony I decided to see where they were flying to. There are clumps of blackberry all over the plot, these are all in flower at the moment with one clump about 200 yards from the hive, yep you guessed it, it's awash with bees! Not just honey bees, this morning I counted 3 different types of bumble too. Obviously a bee favourite and with the boosted pollination it looks like we'll get another bumper crop this year. More blackberry wine methinks. Yummmmm.

On another note, I read the article in the Huddersfield Examiner last night "Did bee sting kill Dewsbury woman Eileen Pearson?" and although I'm by no means an expert I think it's a shocking. scare mongering piece of speculative nonsense. Perhaps it would have prudent for the Examiner to wait until the test results were in before publishing this "may have", "could have" speculative article which will have done nothing the reputation of the endangered bee species and has helped perpetuate the Hollywood myth that bees are killers. A number of my elderly neighbours have already referred to the article, scared that this is going to happen to them. Although I have tried to point out that the article is speculative and that the poor woman could have as easily had a nasty reaction to something she ate, they are not convinced. Bees are now enemy number 1! Maybe an article that gives readers the chance to identify the different makes and models of flying things accompanied by the proper way to deal with stings and bites would have served both the readership and the natural world better. My thoughts go out to the poor woman's family and friends but this article did not, in my opinion help anyone.

Right off my hobby horse and back to facts. The bee sting I ungratefully received yesterday (see previous post) luckily did not cause me to be ill in any way and as this post proves, I am very much in the land of the living. Yes it hurt, yes it swelled a little but because I followed the guidelines and immediately scraped the thing out with my fingernail the sting was only very mild and has even had a slight botox effect on my right eye, so I am certainly not complaining! I may have a bad reaction one day, both my beekeeping mentors have very serious reactions on occasions but I have done the sensible thing and read the guidelines and researched what to look out for so feel confident I am safe. Bring it on! 

As an afterthought, the sting was probably a Karmic one as I laughed out loud when a friend of mine recently got stung in the head by a cross bumble bee. Just goes to show ;-)

Location:Dockery,Huddersfield,United Kingdom

No longer a virgin

The weather was a bit non beekeeping friendly this morning, windy, damp and cool so I wasn't sure the inspection scheduled on a couple of the Rooney's sites would take place. It turned out absolutely gorgeous around lunch time so the session was on. Leaving Jim at home it was just Maureen and myself so all girls together (apart from the odd drone) You'd think there would be an element of solidarity wouldn't you. Nothing of the sort! We carried out the inspections, swapped some frames and boxes about, checked for signs of new queens laying. All in all we checked out 12 hives. We also checked out the varroa boards we put in last week. Some had little sign, some of the weaker colonies were a bit bad but not critical.

So that was that, we packed up the gear. One little lass had been bombing my veil for the last 5 minutes in the apiary, she followed me out, still going at my head, I walked up the field, hoping she'd get bored which she seemed to after a few yards. Thinking I was safe, I ambled back to the car to desuit and get some water. There I was, minding me own beeswax and she came at me, I swear she came out of the sun, directly at my eyebrow. Buzz, bang ow f##king ow! First sting, on the eyebrow, what are the chances?

Itchy fingered novice

Well it's been three days since we put the colony in the hive. They are still there although they aren't feeding much. They had about half a litre of syrup overnight on Saturday and since then they are only getting through a smidgen a day. They are flying well so maybe they are getting their feed elsewhere, the blackberry flowers are abundant at the moment. I am itching to get in there and have a look to see if they are drawing out the comb on the brood frames but have to settle with looking through the mesh on the crown board. They are still there and seem busy doing something so all is well. It's apparently 2 weeks before I can get in there and do a proper inspection of what is going on. The dog like to keep an eye on them too but knows not to go on the plot so doesn't get any closer than this.

Carl from the association mentioned that someone had given him a glass crown board so he, as a novice too, could see what was going on in the hive after he had installed his first bees. I will investigate one of these although I fear that letting the light in every time I check the feed would be as disruptive as taking the crown board off altogether. We'll see (or not).

All other allomenteers on the site have now been informed I have bees, they are all really supportive which is half the battle. The resident nutter (all sites have them) doesn't come near my plot anymore, since I got the dog so with luck they should be safe where they are. The adjoining houses are okay too, one insisted on coming and saying hello to the colony, she loves bees so was egging me on to get them. I get the feeling she is going to end up as hive sitter if I have to go off for any length of time which would be great. Having sat and watched where and how they fly, they are being very good and flying up, way above head height before heading off, encouraged by the surrounding screening that I've put up. This is great as they shouldn't cause any problems to neighbouring plot holders.

The fun begins (and back story)

Yesterday morning a thought entered my head, it wasn't clever or in any way revolutionary but it was this. Since I hit the small 40, every June I have become a bore on one subject or another. Four years ago I was a work bore, three years ago I became an allotment bore, two years ago I became a dog bore, last year I was a van and mushroom bore and this year my June passion is bees. I have bored everyone absolutely senseless on the subject. I love learning new things and have been hoping to keep bees for a number of years now but only since I got chatting to established beekeepers, Maureen and Jim Rooney in the Star Inn have I really got going. They kindly told me about the local bee keeping association and encouraged me to join, if only for the insurance which is included in the membership fee. The insurance, when purchased separately, comes out at over a £100 more than the membership fee for the association so it was a no brainer. I was too late this year to get on a course, they were all booked up well in advance so Jim and Maureen offered to take me under their wing and teach me by doing which after all is my preferred learning style anyways I am so very grateful to them and all the wonderful association folks for giving me access to all this lovely new knowledge. So for the past few months I have been working with the Rooneys, going around to their various sites, assisting in carrying out inspections and very gradually picking up the knowledge. I have also been researching quite a lot, trying to get as much as possible into the little old noggin but it really doesn't click until you get in there and do it. All the novices seem to say that. My only issue is that beekeepers are the most contrary people in the world and when you mix Yorkshire into the equation that contrariness gets amplified! I've been told that if you ask three beekeepers theyre opinion on something you will get four different answers, add in Yorkshire and the list becomes infinite. No offence you Yorkshire types out there, it makes life far more interesting and encourages the novice to find out their own ways of doing things.

Well, here we are, back end of June, I made the decision earlier in the year that unless a swarm found me I wouldn't get going until 2011, I would spend 2010 getting the knowledge and experience rather than to fly headlong into the whole thing. I received a second hand hive and some frames from an ex beekeeping freecycler which I had cleaned up and repaired. I had cleaned up the frames, worked out how they all fitted together and put in foundation wax on the brood frames. This clean hive was sitting, rather lonely looking on the allotment. So, guess what? A swarm found me. We were at Pam & David Askham's on a wonderfully Sunday, enjoying tea and some scrummy cakes in their back garden after being taken through a fascinating inspection of theirs and Russel's hives when Maureen received a call. The was a swarm up the road and round the corner that the owner wanted to be collected.

Off we raced, Jim and Maureen one way, me in the other (different Sat Navs) We arrived at the farm within minutes. The owner was there waiting for us, she had captured one of the bees to make sure that they were honey bees and not some other bee species which was really considerate. Many of the calls the association members get are for bumble colonies, which they can do nothing about. There is a useful identification guide here for bumbles. We set off down through a wonderful cottage garden admiring the beautiful flowers, the owner was has a remarkable knowledge of plant species, down to the wood at the bottom of the garden that adjoins the neighbouring property. Maureen had actually received a call from the neighbour regarding the bees just as her and Jim pulled into the driveway. The swarm was about 20foot up in a holly tree, of course this was in a dense thicket so was fairly inaccessible. It was at this point that I learned not to let Maureen loose with a pair of secateurs anywhere near any of my trees. In she went like a woman possessed, a real Sweeney Todd of the horticultural world. A ladder was called for which duly arrived and up she went, skep in hand whilst I held the ladder and the rest stood back. After more snipping, she cut the branch and about half the swarm plopped into the skep. She brought this down and plopped it upside down on a sheet. She had the queen in the skep so that was the main thing. The rest of the swarm flew about where the queen had been but didn't come down, they were a bit too high up to be able to sense where the queen was and join her in the skep. I was dispatched up ladder, smoker in hand to try and mask the scent of the queen in the holly tree, hopefully this would encourage the remaining bees to fly down into the skep. I didn't work unfortunately. Some congregated on a branch so Maureen went up with a box and tried to get them into that, so did but a lot were left up there. Sadly, due to difficult location it was impossible to get them so they were left to their own devices, they would apparently die off without the rest of the colony which is a shame but another good lesson learned for me. Maureen did explain that in easier circumstance they wouldn't leave that many which is perfectly understandable, that holly tree was prickly!

Skep safely wrapped up and belted in we headed to the allotment where the lonely hive awaited. I did wistfully think that the 30 or so honey bees that had been checking out the hive that morning may have brought their friends along whilst we were away and taken up residence but that wasn't the case. Don't laugh, it has apparently happened! Maureen deftly maneuvered the swarm up the makeshift ramp, into the hive. The way they waddled up the ramp was unbelievable, if you ever get the chance to see it I would suggest you get in there.

This is a pretty terrible video of it but you get the idea :-) (I didn't have my suit on and was a bit giddy with all the excitment so made a bit of a pigs ear of it)



The feeder was put in place with the syrup I had made up earlier in the week when we went out to a different swarm (not to be that time), the hive reassembled and that was it. We watched them for a bit to check all was well and then scurried off to the pub for a swift pint. All in all a good days work!

I'm probably not ready but as with everything I've done in the past I'm learning as I go, will probably make a few mistakes along the way but as long as no one comes to any harm I can't see any problems with that.