Monday, June 30, 2008

Toftman or Beekeeper

The little political situation in the beeyard named "Happy Apiary".Well, it's what I want to write ,it's a kind balance and do believe me I don't like to write a thing like this.Now, let's start.For me it's time to harvest. It's time to be happy. To be sincerely I'm not so happy. The average from 6 hive it's 12 kg/colony. I don't know that






















it's a good average it's not but for me who visit in spring my beeyard for 10 times and I can't work my bees because of the weather only 4 time. Anyway I have honey for my and my friend and don't forget there are still honey flow: lime, and perhaps honey dew.I had 4 hive that swarmed in last month 3 of them become feral colonies and I cached one(using lemongrass oil paste).After the hives swarmed I had 4 new unmated queens. Now I have now 3 mated queens and one missing in action, I mean lost in mating flight.Only one thing make me a little bit happy : my fruit trees.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

How to get rid of..





Since Romania joined EU Animal Protection do not permit to use chemicals to destroy animal like that bastard named MOLE ( Talpa Europaea). I want to get rid of them because In short time I’ll have more Moles then bee colonies. In all my garden have such hills. Can anyone help ?

Monday, June 16, 2008

14,15 June or Swarms If you wish

For sure you had enough of my complains in my last posts, but this weather make me feel stupid: this is not beekeeping this is a kind of lottery. For quite some time I have the idea to give up because this is not the way to work my bees.
Arrived to my beeyard and I did find the same cloudy sky. I started assembling the Alpine hive T made last winter. Really I want to work with this type of hive. Last 2 years I did read a lot on the Internet about this Warre hive. I can not say something about this type of hive because I know about Warre only by reading, but I want to see how it works. You can see me in action doing 3 Alpine hive.






















On Saturday I did wake up about 7 am with a lot of hope. The same cloudy sky. About 11 AM I did try to open one hive to see if I can working the bees. No way, I got a lot of stings. I did give up.
Start cutting the grass and I had a coffee . About 1:30 PM I did hear a "big" near my hives. Guess what I saw ? You can see in this little movie.
I do not blame the bees, I do not blame the weather I blame my self why I don’t give up. That it.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Lime Tree



I want to tell you that you visit Arad from ~20 of May till `10 of June you’ll be surprised. Lime tree flavour (aroma) make you fill in haven. From the railway station till the Theater of Arad there are around 100 lime trees. This is why I love Arad among other things . Last 3 years during midday you can fill the pollution from town traffic and only in evening the lime trees aroma become real

Monday, June 09, 2008

That’s it !

For quite some time I can not work properly my bees because of the weather ( not only). In the weekends the weather was rainy so I have to do all the work in hurry .
Friday 6/6/2008 . Arrived at 7;30 to my beeyard. The sky was full of black clouds. I did look to my hives(not opened). The first rain drops about 10 PM. I have to rethink my beeleeping.
Saturday 7/6/2008. I did wake up about 6 AM. The sky was cloudy . I had a cup of coffe. I hope and pray not to rain. I think how to work my bees in this situation. For the moment no chance. I did start to make lemongrass oil paste and you can see in the photos I did make it .









Around midday the sun did show up. First I did look to the hive with the new queen I did put in home made cage(you can see the film in my last post). The bees did release her and now it is on the comb. She is not matted. I hope she will mate next week. Looking to my Reduced Langsthroth (RL) as you can see in the photo. I did start using this type of hive from last year. I have 2 such hive. I’ll explain this type of hive and his benefits in my opinion. At this moment the RL is equal with 2 Dadant hive body. I’m afraid the family will swarm. Try to harvest 2 combs full of honey but it was impossible, the temperature come up only to 21 Celsius degrees. Perhaps tomorrow.
About 3 PM a big buzz in the apiary. It was a swarm coming out from my RL hive. I’m not really happy but for the moment I can not help. That’s it!

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

For Two Times Happy

















Every weekends I did visit my bees It’s raining or bad weather. So I get used to it. I Have to rethink my program for spring time. I have to take 2 week holiday so I can work my bees and get rid of coming and going and do nothing because of the weather.
















My opinion is the acacia flow in my area was roughly like in the past last years . In spite of the weather my bees gather some acacia honey as you can see in photo. I’m really happy for this.
The second reason I’m happy for is that my grapes this year. I did plant this yearling about 6 years ago. As I can see there are some bunches (?).



















Make small nuc with a new emerged queen a friend of mine gave me. You can se a home made queen cage.




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