Does that strike any chords out there?

When Isaac Asimov wrote those words in 1980 – he was talking about the United States but it suits certain Govenment Departments much closer to home.

If the cap fits…

Nice work chaps!

As you can see, it’s completely dried up and black, the pulp has been removed and all that is left is the skin and what might have been seeds…?

Do bananas have seeds?

Well they must have otherwise – what it the raison d’etre?

Anyway, the whole thing smells of propolis only.

Effects on the Bees

The bees seem very strong and healthy but then we’ve had about a month of benevolent weather and a strong ivy flow. No ill effects to be seen and I didn’t see dead bees being shovelled out during the banana or see them hanging out the front.

Chalkbrood effects

As for the chalkbrood – well there is plenty of brood about the place and the pattern is good but it hasn’t gone away you know. It’s still there but not so much I think but then they  were treated with MAQS beforehand which seems to trigger some vigorous housekeeping.

Conclusion?

Wrong time of the year and completely unscientific but the bees didn’t seem to suffer at all and I’d certainly try it again mid summer.

Unless  anyone out there can come up with a better explanation for the shape, and indeed the size, of a banana – I’d say it’s so they can  elegantly encircle the brood nest like this:

Click here for more on Chalkbrood and the Banana Thing

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Good sections command high prices and beekeepers will tell you the reason is that they are hard got. The bees hate to work all those corners and will often swarm instead. Or the weather will turn on you and you’ll be left with a lot of waste.

There is not much you can do about the weather but here are a few things you can consider to maximise your chances. Basically:

• The Hive
• The Bees
• The Forage
• Whether the Weather

The Hive

In the good old days, double wall hives were more common than they are today – and so were sections. Could they be connected…?

This is a WBC hive:

Here are some benefits of a double walled hive:

• Sections involve a lot of wax-working for the bees and for this they require heat. Double-walled hives such as a CDB or a WBC are, as a consequence, well insulated so perfect for drawing wax.
• The insulating effect of the double walls also helps to keep hives cool.
• WBC hives traditionally painted white adds to the cooling effect; you can stand them in a nice sunny spot without them overheating.
• When sited in a sunny spot, the bees get up nice and early and work long days.
• Fewer bees are needed to keep the brood nest warm and are instead pushed upwards into the section crate or out into the field to forage.

If you don’t have one of these you could use an ordinary hive or better still a polystyrene hive with an insulated section crate and a deep roof. However, both of these hives would be prone to overheating if placed in full sunshine.

The Bees

The bees need to be as strong as possible under a young and vigorous queen. There are various ways of strengthening a colony but when going for sections don’t do this until you are sure that a spell of good weather is going to coincide with the flowering period of a suitable nectar source such as hawthorn/sycamore or clover/blackberry. If you have rape nearby – wait till it’s gone – rape honey will granulate in your sections.

Here are some ways of building up a colony:

• Add frames of emerging brood from other hives. Use emerging brood so the host colony is not burdened with feeding them. Also hatching brood will leave valuable laying space for your queen.
• Use the Third Box Principle or the Newspaper method and unite two colonies but don’t forget to remove the queen from the weaker of the two colonies.

Click here for the Third Box Principle

Click here for the Newspaper Method

• Another way of strengthening a colony is to place another strong hive beside your target colony and if a strong flow obliges – move it to the other side so the bees go to your section hive.

Of course the flip side of bulking up a colony is that the congestion will almost certainly cause the bees to swarm so make sure you give them plenty of super space until your flow commences – IF it commences.  Don’t do bulk up till a flow looks likely.

When that happens:

• Remove the supers and the queen excluder;
• Place your section crate directly onto the brood box – no excluder;
• Add the crown board equipped with porter bee escapes;
• Add the super or supers of bees covered with a canvas quilt or another crown board to clear the bees down into the section crate;
• Stand back and cross your fingers.

The bees will work sections better without a queen excluder. It is unlikely but always possible that the queen will start to lay into the sections so you might want to put the excluder back once the bees are up and working them.

The Forage

Perfect sections must contain a honey which is slow to granulate such as hawthorn, clover or better still – ling heather.

Never, ever fill sections with oilseed rape.

Don’t start sections too close to the June gap or you’ll be left high and dry.

Whether the Weather

You will of course need good weather too and you’ll need it to coincide with the local forage.  If it doesn’t oblige, you may as well not bother with sections, keep them in supers instead.

So Far …

Here’s how the bees are getting on so far this horrible cold wet spring.  Of course they probably won’t cap it all… because this wind is going to flick all the sycamore/hawthorn flowers off then here comes the blithering June gap!

Update – 10th June 2015

The cold weather has held the trees back on this chilly hill. As a result we still have sycamore and hawthorn in bloom here and now we even have weather – set fair all the way till the middle of next week they say. Yesterday the scale hive registered a 7lb gain.

Perfect weather for sections then.

Well yes and no.

Predictably the hive was full of queen cells yesterday. Also, annoyingly – the brood box was stuffed with honey. Why won’t they just stuff the sections and give themselves more space!

So what can I do?

Primitive I know but rightly or wrongly I’ve broken them all down in the hope the bees will stay put for just a few more days and cap the remaining sections.

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

You’ll find this along the top bar where it goes ‘Home Insert Design Transitions Animations’ then ‘Slideshow’

Then click ‘From the beginning’ which, with luck and a following wind, will now be top far left.

Next, either click the mouse or use the arrow keys to work your way through it.

If you’re wondering what on earth this is about, it’s not for you! It’s for people who’ve just been looking at the Artificial Swarm page with its associated diagram and animated Powerpoint thing and who don’t know how to get the thing going.  Click here if you’re interested in that thing.

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Photo from https://beeinformed.org/2012/04/queen-bee-identification/

It is also known as the Grey bee because 3 segments of its abdomen are broadly covered in a thick pelt of short grey hairs which partially conceals the underlying dark abdomen giving it a frosted look. Photo from queen bee identification article on www.beeinformed.org

It is similar to the Italian bee in that it is a medium sized bee with a long narrow body and limbs and it also has the same long proboscis which enables it to make full use of the red clover – an important forage crop in Europe. Here in Ireland, your bees will have to be quick off the mark if you want to get to the clover before that army of sacred cows  known as the ‘Dairy Industry’

Coming, as it does, from a region where summers are predictably long and warm, it has a strong swarming tendency.  In its native range, winters are long and cold so it does fares better over winter than the Italian bee, being very thrifty with a smaller brood nest. In spring, the build-up can be very rapid indeed an adaptation to take advantage of an early flow. If there is one…

Like all honey bee subspecies in their pure form, Carniolan bees can have a gentle nature which is good.  When matings are mixed, aggression can be expected.

Here in the far west of Europe we have our own native bee, the Irish native honey bee, Apis mellifera mellifera,  which has evolved over thousands of years and ‘knows’ how to cope with whatever this clammy, wet and unpredictable Irish climate can throw at it.

If you are thinking of importing Carniolan bees – or buying from somebody else who imports Carniolan or any  other bees for that matter – remember that you will be helping to erode the genetics of the Irish bee.  Ask yourself – why would you want to do that? Wouldn’t you prefer to be a proper beekeeper? Learn to work with your locals and rear your own queens?

Lots of information on that here : Queen Rearing

And don’t forget – small Hive Beetle is out there waiting for somebody just like you. You don’t want to find yourself in front of god explaining why you destroyed your neighbour’s native bee breeding programme and at the same time introduced the most devastating bee parasite to Ireland now do you?

Best not mention you knew what you were doing.

Click here for more on Small Hive Beetle

Click here for more about the Native Irish Bee

Click here for updated list of Irish Native Honey Bee suppliers

Click  here for more about the Italian bee

Click here for the Buckfast bee

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