Apiary Diary - May 2021
Updated: Dec 15, 2021
Spring slow to arrive
After a cold, dry April with record-breaking frosts, early May is not much warmer; but at least the frosts have abated, and at last we have rain—rather a lot of it! More flowers mean more nectar and pollen.
While bees can fly in light drizzle, heavy rain confines them to the hive. So they take every opportunity to forage, nipping out between showers.
This is odd weather, and although we’d usually expect swarms by now, very few are reported until late May. It feels as if we are still about three weeks behind where we should be...
‘No Mow May’ campaign
Plantlife’s No Mow May campaign has done a great job in encouraging gardeners to let wildflowers thrive at this critical time, helping the country's beleaguered bees to find food. Wildflowers are incredibly important for pollinators; and of course gardens look better for them, too!
Supporting this and similar campaigns, such as re-flowering road verges and creating ‘bee corridors’ will really help our pollinators—honey bees, bumble bees, hover flies and beetles—whose populations have crashed due to decades of habitat destruction, pesticide abuse, and the impacts of extreme weather due to climate change.
Time to divide hives
Bees are likely to swarm if their hive is becoming over-crowded. The current queen and her retinue of thousands will instinctively fly out to establish a new home (perhaps in a tree hollow), while those remaining will raise a new queen to continue the old hive. ‘Scout’ bees investigate a suitable site, and the swarm will move out on a warm, still day.
It is the second week in May. Hive observations indicate a likely swarm soon: scout bees are checking out some empty hives, hive boxes are full to bursting, drone cells (to raise male bees) are increasing, there are a few queen cells (to raise new queen bees), and better weather is forecast—finally! Beekeepers prefer not to lose a swarm (it will take time to rebuild the colony), so we simulate one!
First, we move the old hive to a new spot in the apiary (so the swarm-intent colony ‘feels’ that it has moved). We then then place a new empty hive where the old one was—usually a small temporary hive called a ‘nuc’ (short for ‘nucleus’). To this we add from the old hive: brood frames, including a queen cell or recently laid eggs (with potential to become a new queen); older brood ready to emerge and bolster numbers; comb with pollen and honey stores for nourishment; and fresh empty comb for rapid expansion later. We shake some 'old hive' bees into this as a ’starter’ population, which are joined by bees returning from foraging to the position of their old hive (even though it looks different!).
Now we have two colonies—one with a queen, which ‘thinks’ it has swarmed, and one that will raise a queen, and has a good mix of adult, young and emerging bees.
The queen-to-be larva is fed ‘royal jelly’, which helps her develop queenly characteristics, including a longer abdomen for egg production.
We carefully check the nuc after a week to see that all is well. From an egg, the queen takes about 16 days to emerge, and should start laying after she has mated in early June, safeguarding the future of the new colony.
The season’s first swarm collection
Late in May, someone just outside Oxford calls about a swarm in their garden (we are on a swarm collecting register). Armed with swarm kit (a ventilated box smeared with beehive aroma, and swarm paraphernalia) we arrive and find a beautiful prime swarm clustered on the awning of their swing seat.
We gather most of the swarm into the box—including, importantly, the queen—then wait for the rest to join them (where the queen goes, they will follow).
We return after a couple of hours after the stragglers have gone in, seal up the box, bring it home and release the swarm into the new top bar hive. This very bee-friendly type of hive has horizontal bars on which bees will build their comb, and its sloping sides follow the natural shape of comb.
The next morning they are busy orienting—flying in figures of eight to learn their new surroundings. After a couple of days they have settled and are bringing in nectar and pollen, and starting to build creamy-white comb to store this and to provide cells for the queen to lay her eggs.
Mark, Botley Meadow Bees, 31 May 2021