It's About Time He Fixed That Gate...

Sunday the 3rd of March: Late Afternoon.
While his bees were hard at work in the early spring sunshine, LandofSpike had some seasonal tasks of his own to complete.

Apiary Diary: A Little Maintenance

1. No Grass and Looking a bit Scruffy

Task: Last year's wet weather had transformed the Apiary (and the previously grassy plains of Spike Acres) into a mud pit. 
It was now spring and the grass hadn't yet recovered.
Also, the Apiary was covered in leaves, twigs and other detritus that had built up over the winter.
Action: Leaves and twigs raked up, grass seed laid.

Raked & seeded. There are even some daffs

2. The Apiary Gate Needs Some Attention

Task A: Sticks from the willow screen above the door were continually dropping down into the door space, getting wedged in the door and stopping it from closing.
Action A: Attach wooden strip across front and back of the top of the door frame to keep the sticks in place.
Seal the job with weatherproof paint.

     Before: typically shoddy workmanship                                After: still shoddy of course, but problem solved

Task B: The Apiary Gate wasn't closing properly as it had not yet had a lock fitted.
The lock needed to be:
   i) sturdy enough to keep the gate from swinging open on its own or blowing open in the wind.
  ii) simple enough to click open when carrying lots of bee equipment.
Action B: Attach lock device
Secure clip to Doorframe with 20mm panel pins.
Hammer 30mm nail into top right hand corner of gate so that the head of the nail just rests behind clip when door is shut.
Door will now click open with the gentlest of tugs or pushes. It will also click shut with the same minimal pressure.

   Position of gate lock on unpainted lintel                        Close up of lock device: gentle click to open

Update: A Week Later

The Apiary gate modifications are working perfectly.
On the other hand, it has rained, more or less, continuously for two days, turning the Apiary and the rest of Spike Acres, once again, into a sea of mud.

The First Inspection of Spring

Tuesday the 5th of March, Early Afternoon.

The Apiary thermometer was reading 16.5C. 
It was time to have a quick look around inside the hive.



Apiary Diary: Inspection

Smoker ignited at first attempt. Patent LandofSpike eggbox method (to be detailed in upcoming post) works a treat.
Entrance smoked, lid popped off, top feeder removed.
The top feeder had been left on for the winter but had seen no significant attention from the bees since the autumn.

Transparent inner cover removed and more gentle smoke used.
Bees retreated down into comb.
As usual, these Buckfasts are placid and calm.

Eke and slab of fondant removed.
Not much of the fondant had been consumed but it had been integrated into the top of the frames and attached to the top of the burr comb structure.

Fondant integrated into the burr comb structure

(The reason for the presence of burr comb of such epic proportions will be documented in a subsequent post. Link to follow...)

Super frames 1, 2, 3, 7 & the inside of 8 were seen to contain a good supply of capped honey. 

Frame removed showing capped honey                     Capped honey on frames & burr comb in situ

The burr comb, occupied the space vacated by missing super frames 4,5 & 6. 
It was, although not particularly Langstroth-friendly, stunningly beautiful. 
Its smooth architectural curves were delightful and there were deep, mysterious-looking bee-sized tunnels swooping into and out of its intricately twisted shape, allowing apian access to each and every cell.

Anarchic, not in the handbook, but intricately beautiful. And, seemingly, full of honey

Crucially though, it also looked as if it was completely full of capped honey.
And if it was full of capped honey, that meant it contained no new brood.
Which meant that it was less likely to be harbouring the Queen.

Which means that now it has served its purpose of helping sustain the colony through the winter, it can now be considered for imminent removal.

The presence of the burr comb meant it was impossible to remove the super to check the brood box for new brood.
However, super frames 1, 8, 9 & 10 were removed and honey stores were spied in the box below. Every sign indicates that all is well down there.


A second super was added just in case the bees felt the need to make some new comb.


Inspection over, the inner cover and the roof were replaced, and the restraining strap secured.


Finally, the varroa board, having been absent for the winter, was re-inserted.
Monitoring this for a short while will give an indication of hive activity and post-winter varroa levels.



Post inspection:

The eke has been cleaned and stored.

The top feeder has been cleaned and is due a lick of gloss paint on the inner reservoir surface to reseal some scuffed patches. 
The feeder should really have been removed from the hive much earlier. In winter, syrup is best replaced with a solid feed.

The remaining fondant has been re-sealed and stored in the freezer.



Conclusion & Projected Action:

Now that it looks likely that the burr comb is just one big honey store, it has been decided that it should be removed at the next inspection.
This is scheduled for Sunday 10 March.
If all goes well, it should restore, after a winter of freestyle comb, regular Hoffman frame order to the hive.

This will also be an opportunity to check on new activity and asses whether the top feeder (primed with 2:1 syrup) needs to be in place, as a precaution, until the weather stabilises.



The removal of the burr comb is also, of course, the equivalent of an early season honey harvest.

A Thermometer for the Apiary

The BeesofSpike Apiary has a sparkly new min/max thermometer. 

It was installed in a sheltered spot on the western perimeter wall on the 19th of November and has now been in place for a month.

LandofSpike had previously been relying on the BBC's online, London-wide weather forecast for all his bee-related activities but had reached a point when this was no longer site-specific enough. 

Also, at times, it had proved to be a mite inaccurate. 

LandofSpike can recall for you a day in July when he was watching yet another biblically proportioned rainstorm turn the grounds of Spike Acres into a swamp. Simultaneously, on their website, the Beeb were defiantly claiming that the sun was, had been and would keep on, shining brightly.

This clearly wasn't good enough.

His legacy lives on

So after a bit of research, the most robust, accurate and bee-budget-friendly min/max thermometer was ordered and hove up at Spike Towers just in time for his birthday.

At this point thanks go out to the venerable and bee-friendly MumofSpike who funded the purchase.

It's billed as a greenhouse thermometer but does seem to function just as well in the great outdoors. 

Although just to be on the safe side LandofSpike has built it a little roof to keep the rain off.

Operation couldn't be simpler. 

The middle reading is the current temperature. 

Top and bottom are the maximum and minimum temperatures recorded since the reset button was last pressed. 

Maximum 14.1C, Current 13.9C, Minimum 13.7C... Simple. 

And it's been a great success.
The daily chart of maximum & minimum daytime and nighttime temperatures, when correlated with LandofSpike's general Apiary notes, make it easy to match bee activity with fluctuations in the weather.

As a consequence, The Apiary's autumn and winter thermometer-related highlights so far include these thrilling events:

   After a season-shifting cold snap starting on the 26th October (which arrived too early for the new device to record), the daytime temperature in The Apiary hovered, generally, between 11C and 14C. 
This still allowed plenty of foraging and a variety of different coloured pollens were seen being brought back to the hive. 
Despite the continued activity bee numbers were noticed to be steadily dwindling.

   The rain and cold of the 24th of November effectively ended any significant flights.
After that it didn't get back above 10C and was often well below that.
Around about now any interest in the top feeder seemed also to end.

By the 29th of November a nighttime dip below zero heralded two weeks of wintery weather and flying bees disappeared off the radar.

   As reported in the BeesofSpike post 'A Mild Winter's Day', a little warm spell on the 15th of December saw bees out and about for a little while but generally, the new Apiary Thermometer has so far recorded only seasonally cold temperatures.


Winter has set in at the BeesofSpike Apiary.