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Beekeeping
Topic Started: Apr 28 2011, 09:55 PM (1,022 Views)
Phaedrus
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Talk about timing....The Austrian Warré has arrived.

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Change of plan. I`m now going to paint this one and use it for my first hive as it already has the 3 extra boxes. I can add a second box straight away if they fill the first one quickly. My bee supplier says they can build comb the size of your hand in a day under the right conditions.
I have ordered a couple of boxes for the other hive too, but no rush now. I can use the single box hive as a bait hive for now.
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Ray

That's a nice piece of workmanship by the look of it Trev
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Phaedrus
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Yes. Its a fairly simple, but precise design. I am looking into making my own Warré hives based on the best features of these two hives, plus another couple of minor mods.
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Phaedrus
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Started proper work on the apiary today. I set up the single box hive as a bait hive. There`s still a chance (all be it a slim one) that i could attract the attentions of a feral scout and end up with a wild swarm.

The other hive looks like it`s going to receive a colony tomorrow. :thumbsup

It has taken a bit of working out to find a good way of transferring bees from a conventional National hive to my Warré, and also how to set it up for transport to my apiary.
I have also sorted how i am going to fit a syrup feeder. They need food to help them start building comb, and settle in. My bee supplier suggests having a syrup feeder right on top of where they`ll be working. That means I will have to put an empty box on top of the bees, with a feeder and a hole in the top cloth for them to get up to it.
When I have fed them for a week or two, I can remove the feeder, and place the box underneath (as is normal for a Warré hive) as their second bee box.

I`ll hopefully report back when my bees are safely in their new home.
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Ray

How's it going Trev.. are they 'home'?
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Phaedrus
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I`m a beekeeper me! :thumbsup
Yep its official. My first apiary has bees in it.

It was really interesting when I went to get them. My bee supplier is a conventional beek, but he had thought carefully on how to go about populating my Warré hive.
I`ll post a couple of extracts of an email I sent to my beek mentor describing the experience...
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Up at his Apiary we went to the hive where we hoped to find the queen. Clive removed a couple of supers to get to the brood box, then on the first frame he lifted on the outside was the queen!! - Someone must have told her I was coming. Clive couldn`t believe it. Straight into a nuc box while we sorted the rest.
Now. - The bees were going to come from two different hives. (I think the original colony maybe wasn`t quite as strong as Clive first thought?)
What happened was Sian held a large plastic bowl over my hive. As Clive shook and brushed bees from the frames into this bowl, Sian then doused them in icing sugar, before tipping them in.
Clive took several frames of bees from one hive and a few from another. I think he is hoping they will get along better after the icing sugar treatment, plus I guess the anti varroa effect.
Let`s just hope they don`t decide to kill the queen. (who btw was marked with a white spot).


So I got them home...
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I let them sit for a bit and then removed the entrance mesh. I was surprized at how quickly they started coming out. I watched them for a long time. It was good to see them coming and going and especially watching the fanners. Some on the alighting board and some upside down on the front of the hive, sticking their back ends up and fanning.


So there we are. My first colony.

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Ray

Belter! :)

Well done Trev, I really enjoyed reading that! :)
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Phaedrus
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Well I had quite an experience today.

The people who I got my bees from had arranged to come over and see my apiary. They wanted to check everything was ok and give advice on how I should proceed.

We parked up in the lane outside the orchard where my apiary is and started to put on our suits when Clive said he could hear a swarm.
We looked round and sure enough there was a swarm of bees heading our way coming from the north west. It was amazing. we hurried after them as the headed over into the orchard... then we realised where they were heading....straight to my bait hive!
We couldn`t believe it. They have seen many swarms before but never actually seen a swarm arriving at a hive.
I still can`t believe my luck. and to be there when it happened. 5 minutes earlier or later and we would have missed it. i would have thought they had come out of the other hive which is only a few yards away.
Clive took some photo`s. I`ll post them when I get them.
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Ray

That's incredible.. love to see the photos Trev. What are the odds on seeing them arrive like that. So you now have two active hives?
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Phaedrus
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Yes, two hives populated now. I was very lucky to witness it. It only lasted a few minutes.
I contacted the regional bee inspector, and he said it was a feral cast swarm, which basically means they are wild with a virgin queen. Its a very small colony with, I`d say less than a quarter the size of the other hive.
The queen will take a number of mating flights, (flying high so only the strongest males can reach her) and providing she doesn`t get spotted and eaten by a bird (which is quite common), she will then start to lay.
With a bit of luck the colony will start to build up from there.

Here`s the swarm arriving at my bait hive.
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A happy new beekeeper with a new swarm.
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chrislane62

I do hope you are not going to be squatting there every day counting them in and out. :hug
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Ray

:lol @ Chris

That's fantastic Trev... what are their names! :)
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Phaedrus
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I think I`d better check they are all home. Maybe I could call them in when its getting late?

i could name them, but I would want them all to begin with the letter B.

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Ray

Brian, Bert, Bill... er.. um :lol
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Phaedrus
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One of my beekeeping mentors invited me over to his apiary today. He had a number of hive manipulations he wanted to do and asked me if I would like to go along. He is my "conventional" beek mentor, who is teaching me the way things are done using conventional hives and methods, rather than the (less invasive) Warré approach I have chosen.
It was really interesting. He made splits on two hives creating a nuc colony for a new beek. What was especially interesting was there would be no queen added. Just a queen cell, taken from a piece of comb. In other words a queenless colony with a potential queen.
Two nuc boxes were made using this method. The bees were added the same as when we did my first colony. Taken straight off the frames into a bowl and dusted with icing sugar before being tipped into the nuc box.

We also checked through a couple of other hives. removed feeders and finally looked for, and found, a new queen in a busy hive. She was then trapped, marked and clipped.

The whole thing was very invasive and not the way I want to do things, but was fascinating none the less.
The bees from one hive in particular were very aggressive and it was quite unnerving at times. I came away without being stung, but he took a couple of stings through his gloves.
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Ray

Fascinating stuff, the method you chose does sound better. I would be pretty nervous of getting multiple stings I must say!
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Phaedrus
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I suppose getting stung is just a part of beekeeping. Using Warré hives means less intrusion so you don`t deal with angry bees as much, but the hazard increases as they grow in numbers and especially when they are hungry and/or the weather is bad, they can get pissed off. I think you mostly get stung by doing something wrong. Standing in front of the hive, or startling them in some way. Also accidentally squashing a bee or trapping one in a fold of your suit.- That kind of thing.
Interestingly you can get a hive that is nice and another that is nasty. Temperament can vary from colony to colony.
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Ray

I wonder if the tone is set by the queen in those cases, I guess in some ways the individuals of the colony become one 'entity' so to speak.
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Phaedrus
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Yeah. A `'superorganism". Its an odd one to get your head round. The individual bees might be living say, 30 days, or maybe less if they are burning themselves out building and filling new comb.
Its an ongoing living entity.
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Ray

It's a bit SciFi in a way.. although I guess that the SciFi writers got their ideas from things like bee colonies :)
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