Life has twists and turns with surprises on the way. In a turbulent year for UK beekeepers, stories of prolonged rain and poorly mated queens have proved an unfortunate combination for the honey crop. However, beekeeping is not all about the honey – it is about keeping bees and making sure that the season ends with a strong and healthy colony.
Our bees have kept on going through a bad summer and we have helped by providing feed, insulation, opportunities to make new queens and combining colonies, if necessary, to ensure the survival of the many. While not the best example of the principle of survival of the fittest, at times nature does get stuck in a dead end.
The disappearance of our Jubilee queen, Neroli, and yet another drone layer, Ginger, this time in the Osterley hive, left us worried that neither colony would be prepared for winter. So that’s where we left our bees in August with all hopes pinned on our Olympic queens, Myrtle and Mandarin.
Manna from heaven – a worker bee is relieved to find that sugar syrup drops from the sky as well as rain!
Mandarin was poorly mated and laid drone, or nothing at all, for over a month and her workers became increasingly agitated. The beginner beekeepers visiting our hives at the last inspection noticed the difference in temperament between the two colonies: Mandarin’s bees were noticeably irritable and moving erratically on the frame, and Myrtle’s bees were calm and working industriously.
While Myrtle was laying nicely, her colony was not strong enough to spare a frame of brood for a new queen for Mandarin’s colony. Individually, both colonies were small and weak and low in honey stores. Together, they would be a stronger, medium-sized colony with more stores of honey. It was time to hive-combine again.
Queen Myrtle on a frame and clearly cosseted by her workers in a tightly formed retinue. She is laying as well as her mother, Neroli, let’s hope she doesn’t disappear like her too!
The next day we returned late in the afternoon. We opened the Osterley hive and found our drone layer quickly enough, caging her with two workers. Emily wisely cautioned against making a decision about Mandarin until we had checked Myrtle’s hive and reassured ourselves that all was well. Once we were certain that Myrtle was alive and laying, I killed Mandarin.
When I became a beekeeper I vowed never to kill a queen, because I felt that the bees know best when to overthrow a queen and make a new one. (Also, because I don’t like to harm living things.) This year I have killed two queens and both times it was a choice between the death of a queen or an entire colony; not really a choice at all.
Most UK beekeepers are hobbyists and I don’t think even bearded beeks get used to ‘dethroning’ queens. I heard once that an experienced beekeeper in our association retired a favourite old queen to a nuc rather than kill her, and we did consider this. However, the queen can’t care for herself and as her workers died off, she would slowly starve and freeze to death.
Emily points to Queen Mandarin on her frame. Sadly, she mated poorly and laid drone. Image © Drew Scott
That done, we placed the brood box of Mandarin’s now queenless colony on top of the brood box of Myrtle’s hive with a sheet of newspaper between them. We made a few slits in the paper with our hive tools to get the bees started and didn’t make the mistake of putting the queen excluder between the two colonies, which trapped angry drones in the top box the last time we combined two hives.
The newspaper method is a proven and reliable method of combining colonies. Still it was a relief to return on Friday to find that it had worked. I took off the roof and crownboard, removed a few frames from the top brood box and looked at the bottom to see the newspaper chewed away and the two colonies working happily together.
What a difference a queen makes! Mandarin’s former colony was now calm and the bees were moving methodically on the frame each with a job to do. We even had a nice surprise of finding Myrtle walking on a frame in the top brood box showing that she had accepted Mandarin’s bees into her colony and they had accepted her.
We gave our newly combined hive their first tray of Apiguard, which is a thymol-based treatment to lower levels of varroa. Thymol also helps to fight nosema, which can become a problem for bee colonies going into autumn and winter.
To complete the hive combining, we put Myrtle back inside the bottom brood box with the queen excluder on top and placed an empty super between the two boxes to get the bees to ‘rob’ the top stores of honey. This way, we’ll have a medium-sized colony of bees and stores in one brood box, which is better for over-wintering.
So that’s how we left our summer bees. Emily picks up the story in her post Hungry New Zealanders hunt for food.
A reminder that the year is moving on was the sight of several workers harassing drones across the frames. Poor drones: over the next few weeks their sisters will turn on them and throw them out of the hive where they will die of cold and starvation or be eaten by wasps and spiders! It’s a drone’s life! The following week Emily sent me a photo of a grisly discovery outside the hive: lots of little drone bodies efficiently massacred by Myrtle’s workers who have no need of fat drones to guzzle on honey during the autumn and winter.
There are far fewer drones than workers now. I noticed workers harassing drones inside the hive – pulling and pushing, biting and dragging them. Sisters turn upon their brothers and evict them from the colony at the end of summer.
An exciting twist of the summer has been the offer of a new site to keep bees next year. I had mentioned to Thomas, an Ealing beekeeper, that I was thinking of finding a site sunnier than our shady apiary to keep bees. He then put Emily and me in touch with a vicarage in Hanwell where the vicar would like beekeepers to keep a hive. Thomas, Emily and me went to visit the vicarage, which was just lovely – a secret garden behind the church – and blue-egg laying hens there too!
We’re hoping to share the site with Thomas next year, who has kindly offered his help in setting up. We’re grateful for the generous vicar who would share his land with the bees. Habitat loss is a major cause of insect pollinator decline in the UK and in Europe, so it’s nice when people can give a little bit of land back to nature.
We met this pretty bee (shrill carder bee, perhaps) as we left the vicarage. She seemed very happy there – as happy as I hope our bees will be!
I think this pretty bee may be a shrill carder bee? She seemed happy living at the vicarage.
An interesting link
Fellow blogger Ruth E Reveal left a link to a short film about two London beekeepers made by two students on her Visual Anthropology course at Goldsmiths. It’s really great, I hope you enjoy it! Thanks, Ruth!
Mrs Apis Mellifera 
Absolutely fascinating, as usual! I loved the film too.
It’s been a fascinating year is one way of looking at it! We’ve learned a lot from the ups and downs of our bees. I love the film posted by Ruth, particularly the tea-drinking scene at the end. That’s what UK beekeepers really do!
I noticed the tea, but I’ve already learnt the importance of tea and cakes in bee keeping from your blog!
A lovely post, Emma, and well done on combining your colonies…
I made a couple of big mistakes when I tried to combine mine last month, one of which was the queen excluder which, as you said, traps the drones, then to make matters worse, I put clearer boards inbetween the hives to draw the bees into the bottom brood box leaving the top box emty… the big drones blocked the clearer ‘valves’ and caused a pile up of dead bees…. when I took it apart to check it out, the two colonies turned on each other and we had World War Bee…
So now my priority is to strengthen the colony for winter, but I’m two weeks behind (only took honey off yesterday and first Apiguard going on Tuesday)… maybe I’ll put two feeders on at a time to maximize their opportunities to store for winter, good job I bought a stash of ready made syrup!
By the way, which church in Hanwell is going to ‘host your hives’? Is it Liz Moody by chance?
Here’s to strong happy colonies in 2013!
Sara
http://www.HenCorner.com
Thanks, Sara! I feel sure 2013 will be a much better years for the bees 🙂
Like I said above, we have really learned a lot from the difficulties this year and from our own mistakes like the first hive combining. World War Bee sounds quite scary though! Those bees must have been angry!
You’ll find that bees can build up stores remarkably quickly when they have constant availability to feed, just keep feeding, feeding syrup until they stop taking it because they don’t want/need it anymore.
Hope to see you soon at the apiary 🙂
I always learn so much here and at Emily’s site. I wish I could have some bees here at home. At the tree nursery, there are lots of bees to pollinate the fruit trees, but they are not managed hives, but wild bees. I stay far away from those hives too! I never knew you can combine hives. I am glad the bees were accepted, but feel bad for the poor drones, and especially bad for Mandarin.
Having a hive partner really helps as we can offer each other moral support for, um, dethroning queens – I’m glad Emily and Drew were both there. Still, it is sad, Mandarin looked like she could be such a good queen but the state of her hive and mood of the workers said otherwise. So it was good to see how much happier her bees were the next time we opened the hive and Myrtle was walking across the frame making sure they were all hard at work.
I bet those wild bees love your fruit trees, probably a wise choice to give them a wide berth though. Are there wild colonies or solitary bees? I wonder how long the wild colonies have been there?
The bees have been there quite a while. There is both solitary and hive bees at the farm. It is over 350 acres of ornamental trees, shrubs and fruit tree. It keeps the bees really busy. The fruit trees are not sprayed either, since the fruit is not for human consumption generally. They use the apples and pears to feed the deer, elk and zebra. Not to much is harvested for us to eat since much of it gets marred by insects.
There are zebras?
The farm sounds a lovely home for bees, I wish there were more untouched acres in my areas like that!
Hello Emily et al. I enjoy your postings. Please feel free to share them with your fellow London Beekeepers at the London Beekeepers Assocation Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/groups/2512721609/
The film was really lovely. You could have called it “In Praise of Handling Bees Gently”.
Best,
Angela Woods
LBKA Secretary
The two beekeepers in the film really looked like they love the craft, don’t they? Thanks, Angela, that’s great you enjoy our posts and I’ll be sure to share on the LBKA Facebook wall 🙂
Will be my turn next to put a queen to sleep if needs be… hopefully that won’t happen again for a while yet, sniff. I am optimistic that we might get some honey in 2013!
I’m glad that you and Drew were there, but hopeful that you won’t need a turn next year. Or perhaps we should set up a retirement nuc for queens? 😉
I have done the combo also with newspaper and I am always surprised that it works! When I advise new beekeepers, I always suggest starting with 2 hives because things can go south real fast and you should always have a backup. It would be so disappointing to have your one hive after all that work die off.
So true. Two hives can help to support each other and things change so quickly in bee land! Of course, 2 hives leads to 4 and then 6…
The death of queen and drones is the brutal side of nature, but necessary for survival. Great post, I learn so much from your postings.
Thanks, Alex! I do feel sorry for the drones this time of year although those that didn’t mate with queens (and die in the act) did have an entire summer of sitting in the hive eating honey and being looked after by their sisters! Perhaps a drone rescue centre? ….
Great blog. I am using apiguard on my bees also.
Thanks! I’ll be interested to hear how your apiguard goes? The last two years at our apiary beekeepers have said that the treatment didn’t leave very much varroa drop on the boards, although hopefully that indicates not much varroa!
Congratulations on coming through such a difficult summer! Your new place sounds idyllic but must be a bit sad to part with all the support at Ealing?
Thanks! We are hoping for a much better summer next year, although the autumn is lovely so far. We’re keeping our hive at the apiary for the support and social (tea&cake) and if we get a split in spring setting up a new hive at the vicarage. It’s always better to have more than one hive! 😉 I hope you have enjoyed a really good summer?
Yes, I hae joked with Emily a bit about her ‘staff’ at the apiary. WOuldn’t want to give that up in a hurry! My summer, at least bee-wise, has been relatively uneventful (now the spring was a different story). No surplus of honey stores for us, but just so long as the bees have enough for themselves, I’m good.
Excellent post. When you garden, farm or keep animals you need to make tough choices sometimes. Difficult, but what is best for the overall hive, crop, etc. We are glad your combined colony is doing well!
Yes, that’s true. Bees fall under ‘livestock’ and beekeepers are responsible for the ‘hive’ than each bee, although we get a bit soft and attached to the fuzzy little things! 😉 The bees looked (and sounded) much more content for being combined and with a working queen so the choice was best for all. Living in the city we often forget these realities of life. I admire farmers for all their tough work, and choices, that provide us with food and crops.
Well said. It was certainly something we had to learn / accept…something we may write more about soon…
Another great post, EST. It’s been a fascinating summer of reading. Exhilarating. Emotional. Entertaining. But will the season’s end mean that Miss Apis Mellifera will join the bees in hibernating until Spring? RH
Cheers, RH, and likewise! What do beekeepers do when there are no bees to keep? Take bee exams! (Winter posts!) Although bees don’t hibernate as such and we’ll see them pop out for ‘cleansing flights’ even in snow 🙂
Aw, sorry about Queen Mandarin. We do get fond of our queens, don’t we? Poor Hazel was gone from her cage when we went to retrieve her from her boarding hive the next week. I can only guess the workers got to her somehow and killed her. Such a terrible fate for such a good queen. Sigh.
Sorry to hear about Hazel too 😦 The bees can be ruthlessly efficient! Perhaps they have already made/are making another queen inside the hive?
Just came across this online and you popped into my mind! http://forkandvine.blogspot.be/2012/06/buzz-on-bees.html
This is brilliant! Thank you, I’ll share this as it’s a great idea 🙂
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