Month: May 2022

Meet Cleo,

May 25, 2022 / Emma / 0 Comments

the Queen of Bluebell.

Every hive needs a queen, ours has Cleo. She is the heart of our colony and the biggest bee in the hive. She is also the longest living bee in the colony, and if all goes well she will be with us for 3-5 years.

Her main role is laying eggs, lots and lots of eggs, up to 1500 a day to keep her colony strong. As the queen you might think she has all the power, but actually she doesn’t have that much power. Her hive is a democratic system influenced by the worker bees. They will decide when Cleo needs replacing, and they will do it. She does, however, set the tone and temperament of her hive through her pheromones. These also let her colony know how healthy she is. When the pheromone levels fall it can be the signal that a new queen is needed.

One of the first things you learn on the beekeeping course is that a queen-less hive is a grumpy hive!

Cleo, circled here in blue, was born in 2021. She is unclipped and marked with a white dot to help me find her. Trying to locate one bee in the colony of 60,000 is blooming hard so a quick dot can make all the difference.

She came from a fellow bee-keepers colony when he split and overwintered them. He marked her for me and has done a brilliant job, it is easy to spot her! Well it is at the moment with a small starter colony.

Why a white dot?

Good question, it is all to do with when a queen bee is born and helps you to age her. There is a colour system consisting of White, Yellow, Red, Green, Blue. Queens born in a year ending 1 and 6 are dabbed with a White dot; ending 2 and 7 are Yellow; ending 3 and 8 are Red; 4 and 9 dabbed Green; and finally 5 and 0 are Blue. Therefore, Cleo born in 2021 gets a white dot

If you want to remember the sequence: Will You Raise Good Bees (white, yellow, red, green, blue).

Fire, not smoke!

May 25, 2022 / Emma / 0 Comments

Another practical thing we did on the beekeeping course was learning how to light, and importantly keep lit, your smoker – a beekeeper’s best friend. I decided before my bees arrive I’d practise and it was probably a good job that I did. I collected my bits of cardboard, paper and dried bits of twig and set about lighting it. What I probably should have practised was getting the lid on and off the smoker before setting alight as mine has a tendency to get stuck.

Having lit the smoker the flames were growing as I desperately tried to get the lid on without setting fire to my hand. That was proving impossible so for some unknown reason I decided to tip the contents of the fiery smoker out onto the stone so now rather than having fire contained in a smoker I have fire on the floor. Luckily my dad was a fireman so whenever I’m dealing with fire I make sure there’s water nearby and on this occasion emptied the contents of my watering can onto my flaming path. I think we can definitely say my first attempt to light the smoker was not successful.

But I wasn’t put off on my second attempt was much better after a few minutes my smoker was indeed producing smoke. The challenge will be keeping it producing smoke but that’s a challenge for another day.

Bees in a Box…

May 23, 2022 / Emma / 0 Comments

How do you get the bees from their original colony into your hive? What the new beekeeping course didn’t prepare me for, suddenly being a beekeeper!

Collection day has arrived, and I admit to having a few moments over the weekend where I thought ‘is this a good idea?, can I really look after these bees? and am I going to change my mind once I get stung!?!’

I had arranged to collect a Nuc (nucleus colony), a small scale version of the larger colony complete with a mated queen, from a fellow beekeeper at my local association. Nucs can come in all different sizes and I was informed that mine would be a 6 frame nuc in a polystyrene box that I was only borrowing, it had to go back to the beekeeping club the following week. So not only was I collecting new bees and somehow getting them into my hive, I now had a time pressure to do this. Would my bees even want to move into the hive? Would I be taking a full nuc box back and admitting I had failed at step one???

Can you hear buzzing?

I packed up the car, a quick google search suggested I take my veil, smoker and an old duvet cover – not sure what the duvet cover was for but took it anyway. On arrival I was handed a box of bees and reminded the box had to be returned next week. Yes, I think I have understood that bit. That was it, I was now a beekeeper! I grasped this humming box of activity very cautiously and walked to the car. I had decided now was a good idea to introduce myself to the bees so at this point I am talking to the box. “Hi Girls, I’m Emma and I will be looking after you, I hope you lot know what you are doing.” Into the car it went. The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted the duvet cover in the picture, you get a bonus point if you have correctly identified it as a very faded My Little Pony duvet cover, perhaps betraying my age!

Nothing in the beekeeping course prepared me for what came next – the drive home! A box of a few thousand bees buzzing in the boot of my car. Are they secure? What if they escape? Do I drive on? Is that a bee on the window???

The drive home was probably the most cautious and slowest I had driven in a while. Every turn or bump had me straining to hear if the buzzing was getting louder. Why did I pick the bumpy way home? Ok, it was quicker but on this occasion speed was not the important thing. Five minutes from home, I suddenly realised what the duvet cover was for, put the box inside the cover and tie it shut so if they do escape…..

And just like that Cleo and the Girls were home, the #BeesatBluebell

Glue, hammer and nails ready

May 18, 2022 / Emma / 2 Comments

A lovely clear sunny day, perfect for a bit of hive building. First on my list was the landing board or hive stand to sit underneath my hive and give my girls a nice ramp to take off and come home too. Most of the flat pack equipment that arrived in my birthday box had little or no instructions, but there are so many videos on YouTube that will guide you through the process of putting things together. The ones I used were by Simon the Beekeeper and Thorne.

Next came the Super box, a square box that your slightly smaller frames sit on, ready for your bees to fill with yummy honey. Again, YouTube guided me through putting this one together even if it did take several watches. At the end of it I was pretty impressed stood back and admired my super box and landing ramp.

Next came the frames. Now despite being shown how to put these pesky frames together during the day in the apiary on the bee course, I find them particularly tricky. The tiny nails they give you to secure your foundation in the wooden frame have to go in at such a bizarre angle to make sure they hold the foundation in place but don’t come out of the wood on the other side. And the nails themselves are bigger than the piece of wood they are going into, surely slightly smaller nails must exist? I made 10 frames and I’d say probably only two would have met the standard of the beekeeping group. I figured my bees might be a little bit more forgiving. We will see.

Is it my birthday soon?

May 15, 2022 / Emma / 0 Comments

When I told my family I was getting bees, my sisters first response was “oh at least we know what to buy you for your birthday”, little did they know. I quickly realised that whilst I had a hive I was missing several key bits of equipment and spent hours searching various suppliers to make my ‘must-have’ list. A lot of this involved wondering what on earth the different frames, floors, covers and tools were. What size frames did I need?, did I need a super box?, what shaped hive tool was the best?, and Why on earth is there no equipment checklist for beginners!

I had realised beekeeping cannot be considered a cheap hobby and I’d been given the biggest part for free! I’d made my wish list and shared with my family who must have looked at this list and thought what on earth am I going to be buying. Several days later an enormous box arrived and my two dogs got extremely excited, normally boxes this big include their dog food, but they were going to be disappointed – this was a box for bees. Bees I didn’t even have yet……..

I completely lucked out with my family and as I opened the box I realised it contained my entire wish list. I think the item that caused the most giggles was the pig bristle brush, was I really going to brush bees?!?

With the contents of the box unpacked I just needed to wait for a clear sunny day to build all these flat packed bits. Being in the UK this could take a while!

I mentioned having a checklist of equipment so this is what I had before I got my bees:

a national hive with a closed floor
brood box with 10 frames
glass cover board
a metal topped roof

The bits that arrived in the box:

open mesh floor to switch for the closed one
queen excluder
landing ramp
super box
pack of 10 brood frames
pack of 10 super frames
foundation for both
a smoker
hive tool
small hammer for putting tiny nails into frames
hanging stand to put frames on during the hive inspection
and the pig bristle brush