Spring 2006
Very cold, wet weather, (even snow in March) meant we were unable to inspect the hives, it was mid April/May before the first hive inspection could be done at the Monk Avenue apiary. Most of March was spent in the garage cleaning, clearing and repairing boxes and frames so that new, fresh sheets of wax foundation could be put in them.
Our main task was to deal with the hives at Flaxton. The site owners have now built cabins and the area is quite popular with holiday-makers so we must ensure the site is safe for anyone near the hives. Dad and Paul spent most of the first weekends of April taking old concrete slabs to make hive bases and blocks of wood to Flaxton to build fences to prevent people going near them. A very difficult backbreaking job on wet, boggy woodland.
The result was five hives on new stands and later, in May, Paul and Dad added a tall fence to try to keep the bees flying away from visitors.
Back at the Monk Stray Apiary our two main hive colonies and two aggressive swarms from 2005 have survived over Winter. Both hives swarmed in May, One swarm which settled in our own garden and was soon re-captured and re-hived in a new nucleus hive and the other swarmed into Mr. Cook‘s garden next door.
Our main priority project this Spring is to try breeding some docile queen bees for our hives. Dad and Paul joined a group class of the local beekeepers society to learn how to start.
One member of the group who had quiet bees offered his apiary as a base. A queen was selected from a docile colony and isolated her in a cage and any eggs she laid were transferred to a queenless, queen-rearing colony where the bees raised the queen cells,
New nucleus boxes were prepared with bees, but no queens and Dad and Paul placed a queen cell in each just before the queen was due to hatch. Hopefully she will hatch and mate with the docile drones from a colony of quiet, docile bees.