Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the BeesofSpike Apiary

The old year is now fast receding into the dim and distant past.

Not receding into the dim and distant past is LandofSpike's remarkably resilient cough; a legacy of a festive season of which he spent every single day afflicted with A Ghastly Illness. 
Moan, whine etc. 

His Man Flu was so virulent that he was unable even to drag himself to the western borders of Spike Acres to monitor his bees.
So the daily Apiary observation chart, over the Christmas & New Year period, records nothing apart from a maximum temperature of 12.2C, a minimum of 3.5C and a scribbled note that it had been rainy but mild.

The bees didn't seem to mind his absence though. They just carried on without him.


Another consequence of The Great Illness, but also partly due to A General Uselessness, was the LandofSpike Christmas cards failing to meet their December deadline.
So, in time honoured fashion, the Apiary Christmas Message is making a belated, yet still heartfelt, appearance.

LandofSpike and his Bees would like to wish all you Friends of Bees a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Join them for more bee-related nonsense in the coming year.

What's That On My Landing Board?

The BeesofSpike Apiary has had a steady stream of visitors this summer.

There have been humans, of course.

Not many guests have escaped Spike Towers this year without undergoing a guided tour of the Apiary, whether they wanted one or not.

Freddie the cat has approached with caution and has tended to scale the perimeter fence for a look inside rather than venturing through the front door.

Generally, unless LandofSpike or BKJ1 are there to protect him he gives the Apiary a wide berth .

This is about as close as Freddie is prepared to get

And there have been wasps.

But not many of them.

LandofSpike has seen a grand total of no more than 5 individual wasps in the Apiary, perhaps only 10 of the blighters in the entire grounds of Spike Acres all summer.

If he'd had a Waspinator he'd have been hailing it as the most effective product on the planet but as he has yet to invest in one, he's going to put this waspy absence down to the miserably wet spring and summer.

However, and with due deference to that cat, those people and the wasps, some visitors are more interesting than others.

And the LandofSpike Wildlife Photography Team has managed to secure footage of two of this year's finest, so with no further ado we can present...

Specimen A:

This rather large beastie was lurking around the landing board and entrance on the morning of 9th July.

30mm long including antennae  

The Colony had only been in place for little more than a week, had already been diagnosed with a substantial varroa infestation and was in the middle of the wettest summer since records began so LandofSpike was feeling a little edgy. 
There was probably a choice of 4 reasons why it was there:

a) it was an enemy of the hive and was angling on laying its eggs inside the hive with that seriously large ovipositor.

b) it was an enemy of the hive and was angling on getting inside the hive to eat or kill the bees.

c) it liked pollen and was attracted by the pollen-y smell of whatever was inside that little doorway.

d) it was bushed out and just happened to be having a rest on the landing board.

So, just in case it was about to dart into the hive and start spreading chaos and disorder LandofSpike scooped it up with his trusty Queen Clip, incarcerated it in a handy jar and took it back to the Spike Towers Research Laboratories for analysis.

It wasn't best pleased at being inside the jar

Once the Big Boys' Book of Insects had been scoured for a match, its two pairs of wings narrowed it down to Order Hymenoptera and the absence of a 'wasp waist' pointed towards it being a Sawfly.

A bit stout around the middle

Pachyprotasis rapae was thought to be the most likely match but no-one was particularly certain.

However, it was certain that the big sticky out bit on the stern was the insect's ovipositor which meant that it was a female.

Most adult sawflies feed mainly on pollen so it's not hard to see why it might have been drawn to a big box full of the stuff.

Having ascertained it was no threat to the hive, Ms Sawfly was liberated back into the wild, but at the Eastern Borders of Spike Acres, well away from the Apiary, just in case.

Specimen B:

This behemoth of a hoverfly was hanging around the gates on the morning of 4th September.

It probably measured in at somewhere approaching 25mm in length.

Hmm, perhaps those bees won't notice me...

It was persistently curious about whatever might be inside the hive. However, the guard bees seemed to have the situation under control so LandofSpike didn't deem it necessary to intervene and implement a capture. 

He and BKJ1 contented themselves with taking a few photos and watching its attempts to appear nonchalant.

Identification was pretty easy. This mighty minibeast was Volucella pellucens, or the Pellucid hoverfly, and is one of the largest of Britain's flies. 

Hoverflies are nectar feeders so all that nectar-related bee activity was probably hypnotically fascinating for it. 

Interestingly, the larvae of this hoverfly live in wasp nests and bumblebee nests but fortunately not in honeybee hives.

So it may have been wondering whether or not these were wasps or bumblebees and if the hive would make a viable nursery.      

Or it could have just been after some nectar. 

Ultimately, it was just a bit too daft to get past the defences.

The Pellucid hoverfly does not possess Ninja-like powers of self-concealment

So, apart from the now vanquished varroa and a bit of waxmoth, both of which came bundled with my 5 frame nuc as a rather unwelcome added extra, that just about covers the visitors to the hive for the time being.

Next up, it's 'How to Light a Smoker First Time, Every Time".

Get Thee Behind Me, Jet Stream

Somewhere the sun is shining, 

So, honey, don't you cry,

We'll find a silver lining,

The clouds will soon roll by. 

So sang Elsie Carlisle, vocalist for the rather excellent Ambrose and his Orchestra in 1935.

And now, seventy seven years later, the clouds are indeed about to roll by. 
And the place where the sun is about to shine is right above the BeesofSpike Apiary.

Yes indeed, the English summer is, eventually, almost here.
This is due to the Jet Stream finally shuffling back up into its customary, more northerly, position after having lingered too far south for far too long.

And happily, it's taking its appalling weather with it.

No more of this for a while

It has rained every day at the BeesofSpike Apiary since the bees arrived.

The Apiary's newly laid grass has more or less disappeared, and the yet-to-be-named Hive Number One stands glumly in a depressing sea of mud.

But all is about to change.

Today, Friday 20 July, apart from being Mrs LandofSpike's birthday (Many happy returns, of course) marks the end of the interminable Jet Stream-induced rainy season.

And about time too

Tomorrow, it will be sunny all day. 

And the forecast is set fair for as far into the future as LandofSpike's weather-predicting seaweeds can tell.

The BeesofSpike will like this.

It's at last a chance to get a concerted spell of foraging under their belts before they have to hunker down for their first winter at the Apiary.

A BeesofSpike forager finally out and about, collecting pollen from the privet hedge two gardens down

New Arrivals at Spike Towers

Saturday 30 June, 7:33 a.m.

The doorbell at Spike Towers rings loud and long.

BKJ2, having been up and about for quite a while, and being much faster than her old Dad, gets to the door first and throws it open.

On the step is The Royal Mail Special Delivery Guy clutching a reasonably sized and well sealed parcel. 

The parcel has dark, meshed-over holes on three sides and a large (and grammatically ambiguous) "FRAGILE BEES KEEP COOL" label covering its fourth side.

BKJ2 turns and launches herself into a Paul Revere-style charge through the house, announcing joyously, and at high volume that, "The Bees Have Arrived!" 

It's an alarm call that propels an instantly awake BKJ1 to the front door faster than the proverbial speeding bullet. 

The Postman, fair play to him, seems totally unfazed by the whole experience. 
He gets BKJ2 to make her mark on his electronic signing device and he listens politely as she excitedly tells him just what's in the box.
LandofSpike suspects that he may well already know.

Job done, Mr Postman breezes off.

So with the front door now firmly closed, LandofSpike, BKJ1 and BKJ2 are left standing in the entrance hall of Spike Towers looking at, and listening to, their New Box.

It's buzzing.

Or, to be more precise, whatever's inside the box is buzzing, and it's doing it rather loudly.

Buzzing

The box, as BKJ2 has already told us, contains the prospective new residents of the BeesofSpike Apiary.

A Five Frame Nucleus of Buckfast Honeybees.

It is, of course, these little fellers that are making all the noise.

They've had a long overnight journey from the Welsh Borders so they're entitled to be a little grumpy.

But their journey is almost over.

Mrs LandofSpike now appears and firmly but calmly, informs LandofSpike that it would be best if he, and his box, were to relocate themselves into the garden at the earliest possible opportunity, preferably a long way from the house.

Calming down... nowhere near the house

Again, fair play, because the loud buzzing noise does seem like a rather angry loud buzzing noise.

So off to the newly christened BeesofSpike Apiary they go.

LandofSpike lashes the box to the hive stand with his Hive Securing Strap, just in case it decides to topple off sideways.

Best to be on the safe side...

Nicely strapped down

That done, LandofSpike left the bees to settle in their traveling box for a few hours, and having missed breakfast in all the excitement, took the opportunity to grab himself a cup of tea and a large, nutritious snack. 

LandofSpike was now alone with his bees.

He read his instructions so he could plan what to do next.

Then he read them again. 

And then he read them again.

Several further rereads later, he suited up and decided it was about time he opened the box.

He had no idea what to expect but his task eventually proved to be extremely simple.

Y'see, LandofSpike might have been a tad apprehensive, but those bees, well, they knew what to do.

The door's under that label

The Nuc was still strapped to the hive stand, with its currently sealed and hidden entrance positioned as close as possible to where the entrance of the hive proper would be situated.

On the front of the Nuc, the big sticker which said "open using flap below" told LandofSpike where the door was concealed. It was possible to feel the edges under the exterior packaging.

The packaging was removed and the small entrance was revealed.

There it is

LandofSpike looked at the door for a long time and then, with the point of a craft knife, he gently and carefully flicked it open...

And the bees came out.

LandofSpike stood and watched.

And out they come

Still coming out

They seemed pleased that their confinement was over and set about immediately checking out the area, flying around the Apiary and crawling all over their box.

They were busy but not angry in the slightest.

However closely they were watched by the bloke in the white spacesuit, however many close up photos of them he took, they totally ignored him, so keen were they to get on with their Beestuff.

Are we still in Wales?

After a short while LandofSpike noticed that something special was happening.

A group of bees were standing by the door, their heads down, their abdomens pointing upwards and they were beating their wings.

They were fanning the Queen's pheromones from the hive into the air to announce to the colony that this was now their new home.

Later on that day bees started returning with pollen on their legs and it was obvious that they were now also already happily foraging.

With a seemingly happy flight of bees now bedding in, LandofSpike decided to leave them to settle overnight. 

Tomorrow, it would be time to transfer them, on their 5 frames, into their new permanent home.

Their momentous move will be documented in the next exciting instalment of the BeesofSpike, coming soon to this very blog.

Your Bees are in the Post

LandofSpike has ordered his bees.

A Five Frame Nucleus of Buckfasts.
The Queen's already marked, which is good, as that means LandofSpike won't have to risk squashing her to death trying to mark her himself.

She's not clipped but that shouldn't be a problem.
The Nuc will be Varroa treated before despatch and will have brood eggs and flying workers.
And, happily, it's all on National frames which will slot right into the Beebox.

They're due to arrive at Spike Towers by registered post in a couple of weeks.

LandofSpike's postman, I'm sure, will be delighted.

Yes, he's delighted

On the one hand LandofSpike is really rather excited about the Imminent Bee Arrival, but on the other hand, he's seriously wondering what on earth he thinks he's playing at.

Deforestation and the Dawn of Empire

The area which marks the Western Boundary of Spike Acres has been a bit neglected of late. 

For example...

And...

So it was with some trepidation that LandofSpike and Beekeeper Junior Number 1 made their way through the undergrowth armed only with standard issue machetes, some homemade napalm, a compass and a fully stocked toolbox. 

Their mission?

To clear a space for the Land of Bees.

More wilderness

Actually, it wasn't too bad.

The vegetation put up only a token resistance and in no time at all sackfuls of the green stuff had been hacked away and a clear earth floor had appeared beneath their feet.

Predictably, removing all the ivy, dust and detritus of the ages from the nooks and crannies in the wall and fence revealed some critters so grisly that even the bug-loving BKJ1 had to think twice before approaching them. 

home to some pretty sizeable MiniBeasts

Several of Shelob's relatives seemed to have set up camp in the ivy and leaf litter under the Boundary Fence and they seemed none too pleased to be disturbed. A couple of the brutes even decided to attack each other. We let them get on with it.

BKJ1 also found a grub which was, frankly, enormous. It turned out to be a stag beetle larva. Sadly there's no photo of this colossus as LandofSpike was so flabbergasted by its immense bulk he forgot to photograph it.

One major consideration when setting up the Land of Bees was that the site needed to be as unobtrusive and as secluded as possible. 

A nicely concealed hive makes for a happier human community. It would also give the bees a calm area in which to get on with their work unimpeded, and isolated from the rest of Spike Acres.

So screening the area on all sides was going to be essential and, possibly, a bit pricey. 

Luckily, during the day's excavations, LandofSpike was able to unearth and salvage some willow screens left behind by the previous civilisation that had colonised the area in a bygone age. 
Largely unaffected by the passage of time, the screens were ready to be re-erected and restored to their former glory.

Evidence of an Earlier Civilisation

Perfectly preserved and re-usable relics

Meanwhile BKJ1 made a great job of converting a reclaimed pallet into a sturdy beekeeper platform. 

New slats were nailed into place and then the whole thing was given a liberal coating of weatherproofing paint.

BKJ1 contemplates his handiwork

The reclaimed willow screen was in great nick and with some judicial trimming and a bit of frame construction it has given the Land of Bees excellent protection on its western and northern borders.

Well, at least it looks less wild than it did 3 hours ago

So that's it for the time being...

Before the Beebox can be installed, the southern and eastern boundaries still need to be screened off, the ground needs to be leveled and the wooden bits still need some more weatherproofing. 

We also need a little weatherproof box to keep all the beekeepery kit in.

However, neat and tidy as it is, that bare earth does still look a bit unsatisfactory.

Fortunately, LandofSpike has spotted some big chunks of turf in a skip very close to Spike Towers.

It looks very much like that discarded grass needs to be liberated and given a new bee-friendly home.

Right Suborder, Wrong Genus

Spike Towers is finally home to a colony of insects.

Unfortunately it's not the expected arrival of a 5 frame nucleus of Apis mellifera carnica but a surprisingly robust colony of ants. 

And they've decided to take up residence in the bathroom.

There really are quite a lot of them.

Lots of these

LandofSpike supposes that the higher than average rainfall this month has sluiced them out of their usual subterranean home and into the relatively more arid environs of Spike Towers.

At this moment a bitter struggle for territorial advantage is probably raging between the newcomers and the previously dominant silverfish.

This untimely invasion may, however, be opportune, for on his last visit to the Secret Underground Vault which harbours his Empire's Capital Reserves, LandofSpike couldn't help but notice that the coffers were more than unusually empty.

Not many of these

Consequently, LandofSpike is considering postponing his acquisition of a flight of honeybees and adopting, in their stead, the already installed, and therefore significantly cheaper, colony of ants.

AntsofSpike could make perfect sense.

It would mean that emphasis would shift from honey production to a prospective entry into the fledgling formic acid market. 

A FriendofSpike has suggested that he could even diversify into cultivating and marketing that nutritious fungus that the ants produce. 

With careful husbandry and a couple of well placed features in the Sunday supplements, FungusofSpike could possibly become next year's Groovy New Superfood.

LandofSpike could solve World Hunger at a stroke or, better still, get totally minted by opening the World's First Ant Salon and Exclusive AntFungus Restaurant in Primrose Hill.

Or, conversely, LandofSpike could just stop wasting everybody's time with his nonsensical AntTalk and make sure his next post is actually about honeybees.

Countdown to some Hands-On Bee Action

The first 2012 module of LandofSpike's course is set for this Saturday.

The weather has been glorious all week. It's warm and sunny and spring seems to have got its feet firmly under the table. 

LandofSpike checked out Apiary Central this morning and bees are definitely out and about but they're still restricted to just the one bee-sized winter doorway. 

Saturday's itinerary includes expanding their entrance so LandofSpike suspects that he should soon know all about mouseguards.

We're also going to be giving the hive a springtime healthcheck and we'll be topping up the feeders.

Theory-wise we'll be learning how to identify bee castes, how to feed and what plants honey bees love to visit.