Next Saturday Dr.Sara Robb will be showing us how to make soap using the products of the hive. All are invited.
I have a new telephone or should I say an additional phone as I'm keeping the old one for a while until people stop calling me on that number. The new number is 0 742 743 1108 which I think is quite memorable, anyway my reason for bringing it to your attention is that I want people to use it instead of the old one.
Yesterday Colin and I collected a colony from Abbey Wood, (see last blog). There's a Queen in residence and it looks like she's performing well but the colony is very small so we may need to combine this colony with another. We know the Queen is only a couple of months old and she is laying nicely so if we did "combine" she could be surplus to requirements and available to a member who needs to re-Queen. On Saturday we'll try to find and mark her to make her easy to locate in the future. If you want to see how to find the Queen and mark her, come early on Saturday at about 1000.
On Sunday 24th July Colin Emmanuel, his friend Mark and I went to Romford to collect a feral colony from a compost bin. Everything went swimmingly, most of the brood comb was hanging from the lid of the bin and the owners kindly gave permission for us to take the lid back to Dartford. As luck would have it the comb, still attached to the lid, slotted neatly into our prepared box (a super fixed with brackets to a brood chamber).
On the following Monday Colin and I installed them in Emmanuel's Beehaus hive (the long plastic hive made by Omlet ltd. and based on the Dartington design). On Wednesday E phoned (using the old number) to say that the bees had absconded! On three occasions in the past and this is the second time this year I've had a newly installed colony abscond. One of the installed colonies was a swarm and two were feral colonies with their comb trapped in standard frames with chicken wire on one side and single strand wire on the other. All three were on open mesh floors. On the second occasion a hinged flap on the bottom of a home-made Dartington accidentally "flapped" open and on the last grass stuffed under the mesh floor and above the varroa board, (there was a gap of about 2" between them), became, I believe, partially dislodged. In future I shall be doubly careful when installing a new colony I'll avoid exposing them over an open mesh floor and we're giving some thought to the design of an all wood "comb trap frame". Has anyone any ideas?
I hope to see you on Saturday.
Barry
No comments:
Post a Comment