Lazarus bees! I have a dream....

When I got back from work this evening, Elva was already home and she'd had time to look around the garden in the light.  As we were chatting about the kind of days we'd had, she went on to tell me how she had found some dead bees lying onto top of the hive and that had brought them in for me to look at more closely.  Gee, thanks!  She was telling me of her microscope etc etc. although if I'm honest I wasn't paying the most attention ever.  I had seen the same bees over the weekend and had wondered why the birds don't remove the bee carcasses especially when food sources have been so scarce recently with all the frost and snow.

Anyway, the point of the story ("at last" I hear you cry), was that an hour or so later as she was preparing our evening dinner (we take it turns in case you are wondering!!) I heard this scream from the kitchen - "Cliff!".  Fearing the worst that maybe she'd scalded herself or less seriously the oven had exploded, I intrepidly went to her rescue.  "Your bees are alive!", she screamed.  For those of you lucky enough to know Elva personally, you will know that she is not prone to hysterics and helps me with the hive regularly.  I guess it was the sheer surprise of seeing the girls come out of their "coma" that prompted the shouting.  Maybe it was the heat from the kitchen that did it, who knows? It is something that I intend to research to see if I can revive some of the "previously lost" bees. The Frankenstein bees...

Either way, besides being an amusing story (well, I thought so) it is certainly encouraging that these cold temperatures may not be so fatal as I had thought!

By the way, tidings to my friends stateside on Martin Luther King day 2010!

It's been a while........

Firstly, I have to apologise for the lack of posting recently.  Although things have been quiet on the bee front as you'd expect at this time of year it doesn't mean I am sitting twiddling my fingers.  

Our weather (along with that in the UK) has been described as Arctic over the last few weeks although I'm not sure how accurate that description actually is. Either way, the temperature hardly rose above freezing for about 3 weeks and with the clear night skies meant it fell to minus 10 or so.  We're talking Celsius now.  The cold air has now moved away for the time-being and it felt like Spring today as I got around to some long-awaited garden maintenance.  I love this time of year when you can start planning those jobs that you need to do like ordering seeds and deciding where your fruit and veg are going this year.  

The bees were out flying over the weekend although, to be honest, they just appeared to be coming and going so I assumed they were out on cleansing flights and bringing in fresh water.  

We have our local beekeeper's lecture this week about Apimondia 2009 - the international beekeepers' conference which was held in southern France this year.  The talk is being given by one of the national beekeeping celebrities who frequently appears on the radio with his tales of wildlife and beekeeping.  Looking forward to it and to hear of what's happening around the hives in the county.

I got a few vouchers for a beekeeping equipment store at Christmas and I went a bit mad ordering stuff for the 2010 season.  Anyway, the equipment arrived this week and I now have even more to occupy me in the evenings making up supers and frames.  One of the new pieces of hardware was my first Top Bar hive so that's going to keep my out of trouble for a while anyway.  Watch this space!  TBH's still seem fairly new here so I am going to have find someone with more experience than me!

Changing the subject, it's only another few weeks left to get fully fit for our ski trip which we're really excited about.  For anyone who is wondering, I won't be appearing in Vancouver at the Winter Olympics - ha ha ; ) 

Summer beekeeping course

Here in Ireland we have a week in the summer dedicated to beekeeping.  There are lectures, workshops, practicals and demonstrations.  The week event is held at Gormanstown in County Meath, near Dublin.  (The venue is usually a boarding school in term time.)  It's a national event and attracts beekeepers from abroad.  I was working this year so I couldn't attend.  

Anyway, I see that at Gormanstown this year the main guest speaker is from the U.S.;  Dr Dewey M. Caron, retired professor of the Univ of Delaware.  

I'm hoping to attend this July if work allows it.   Should be interesting to hear him speak especially given that most of the beekeeping blogs I follow originate stateside.  

On the bee front, there is little to report.  It's been cold here and I guess there's little incentive to venture outside when you have all the food, warmth and sisterly company you need!

Water, water everywhere!

It's just a quick post as much for the record as anything.  Ireland, especially the south and western parts, has been experiencing the worst weather in years and this has led to major flooding in those areas.  The River Shannon, probably Ireland's most well-known river, has burst its banks in many areas including Athlone town which is about 35km from us.  Fortunately, our own house is on high ground and we'll escape the flooding.

A lot of Scotland and the northwestern areas of the England have been badly affected too - especially in Cockermouth in Cumbria where, about 15 years ago, I lived in a beautiful converted mill on the river.  Probably much of this amazing building was submerged in these floodwaters.

My heart goes out to all those poor souls whose lives have been so dramatically turned upside-down.

Bees flying

Of little interest to the general public out there but I want to record the fact that in yesterday's glorious sunshine, I took the opportunity to remove the Ashworth feeder from the hive.  [I hadn't been able to go near the hive for ages for one reason or another.]

Plenty of bees were flying and there was even the very occasional forager bringing in ivy pollen!  As you'd expect there was a massive fall in the number of bees under the cover and thankfully no sign of those cursed earwigs!

That's all for bee news. 

On a personal note, I have to congratulate my wonderful fiancee, Elva, who completed her first 10 kilometre run on Saturday morning in the most dreadful conditions.  Until 2 months ago, she'd never run anywhere.  The course was along a stretch of brand new motorway about one and half hour's drive from us.  The motorway is yet to be opened to traffic so don't worry there wasn't any traffic to dodge!   The local school which was bypassed by the new road organised the run and would have benefitted from sponsorship and the entrant fees collected so it was a great day for everyone involved.  I even bumped into one of my fellow members from the local beekeeping association who coincidentally had completed the race with his wife!

Let It Be(e) 2 - ref post 30th September - thinking ahead

As some of you may have read I wrote on 30th September how I had messed up and allowed a whole load of wild comb to be built below the brood box (where I had placed a super with only 5 frames).  Upon lifting out brood frames during the following inspection, it became clear that the lower box was a mess.  See my earlier post for photos.  I've decided to leave it to Mother Nature but have just realised that come Spring 2010 all going well, I could carefully use a "cheese wire" technique to slice through the wild comb (below some of the brood frame bottom bars) without opening the hive and then I should be able to remove the upper brood frames for a proper inspection.  Hopefully the Queen, by this stage, will have climbed into the upper box and I'll find her.  I will then transfer the brood frames into a spare hive which I can return to the original location.  As far as I can anticipate, the problem will be if the Queen makes a run for it and stays down below in amongst the wild comb which will now be fairly structureless.

The number of bees will be far less so that should help.  I guess I could wait for three days and try to spot new eggs in the spare hive now with the transfered brood frames.  What if there are no eggs?

If the remaining part of the original hive were tidy I could shake out any bees but the lower part will be mainly wax without honey or stores I would expect.  Are there other techniques to try?  Are there other pitfalls that I could trip into that I haven't foreseen yet?  (I mean in relation to this problem!) 

I welcome your thoughts and aplogise if my writing is confusing.  Anyway, sure isn't it good to keep the old beekeeping part of the brain ticking over during these colder days?   Hope you're all keeping busy :)

SOS for Bees

I have just discovered that it is Bee Aware Week which is being promoted in the UK.  It was by accident that I found the website - I'm not a regular visitor to the Women's Institute!

http://www.thewi.org.uk/standard.aspx?id=15584

Fasten your seat belts ready for landing please!

With the quiet times for beekeepers here, I thought I would survey your opinions on the use of landing boards in frame hives.  This has been my first year and "unseasonal" to say the least but I did not purchase a landing board with the current hive set-up and there seems to have been no major difficulty but I'm curious.  Any ideas y'all?

Planting for bees

Hi folks - this weekend as our Indian Summer melts into an Indian Autumn, we put in a lot of work in the garden.  Following a friend's advice, we bought a selection of daffodil bulbs (€40 for ~ 600).  Not only will they bring a beautiful look to the garden and driveways throughout February, March, April, and possibly even May, they should help to provide the bees with some food in the new season when there's little else in flower.  Not surprisingly, my back is aching and my hands are blistered!

The dogs helped us decide exactly where to place the bulbs.

It's that time of the year to clear out the old beds and we took the opportunity for a final cutting of the sweet-peas (lathyrus odoratus) for indoors - this year they've been amazing - I'm not sure why.

Today we took the dogs on a long walk along an abandoned canal nearby.  A beautiful afternoon in the fantastic autumn sunshine.  Elva had her camera so we were able to record some of the vibrant-coloured berries that were on show in their full glory.

The common ivy is still in flower so the bees are being spoiled with all this extra pollen.

Inspection 04/10/09

The weather is remaining dry which is a relief after the rainfall which we had during July and August.  I wanted to have a look at the hive after the last inspection when things looked pretty messy.  Unfortunately time and the ambient air temperature didn't really allow for a thorough look.

The bees were still out and about and bringing pollen (dark vivid orange).  I used a little smoke as I removed the roof, there were masses of bees below.  

The bees were very well tempered so I am happy that everything is in order with the Queen and her subjects.

I added a top super with the 5 "extra" foundation-only frames just to allow the bees draw some comb if they wish (with hindsight I should have done this whilst we were away).  I added the large feeder above that and gave them around 4 pints of syrup.  My intention is to let take this syrup down and store it.  I'll keep an eye on the upper super frames because I don't want them to store nectar, honey and certainly no brood here.  

As far as the potential mess below the brood chamber, which I wrote about in my last post, I am letting Mother Nature do her own thing for the time-being. I haven't ruled out some form of intervention altogether but, as I say, the air temperature makes it unwise.  Let it be(e), I suppose.

Not much else to report as I didn't extract any of the frames inside the hive body.  There were quite a lot, say 50, bee corpses lying around the outside of the hive which I imagine is typical for this time of year but worth recording for the sake of my "bee diary".  

In the past I have seen quite a few earwigs in the hive.  This time when I opened the hive, I noticed one of these pesky lads having a good ol' scrap with a few bees.  My money was on the bees!  It made me smile to see the girls fight their corner, I have a marked dislike of earwigs especially when they're trespassing on private property!  

Lastly, perhaps slightly wastefully, I used up some excess beeswax to make some firelighters.  The ones in the shops are full of chemicals and have a really nasty feel about them. It was a tiny amount, but when the molten wax is poured into cardboard eggboxes and allowed to cool, Bob's your uncle!  

I'm hoping that during this off-season I'll learn about the things that can be made using some of the hive by-products.