So we started getting the Apideas ready this year for Queen rearing, here is some of the work to get them ready. This is your basic apidea, we number these for our hive records Taking the Floats out, these help the Bees feed Taking the Frames out Removing the ventaltion screen remove the door […]
We’re starting to open the hives again this year Getting suited and booted Getting the Smoker ready Opening the hives Some Brood (top) and some frames with out brood (bottom) Checking the frames We have a queen, you can spot her with the yellow mark Plenty of Bees in the hives The hive on […]
We also went to Panales Arroyo wax plant where they make foundation Below is the heater for first grade of wax to come in to the plant, its all melted down here to two different grades Below are the second grade baths, this is of a higher grade wax. From above it heads to the […]
We’ve been at Apimondia 2011 Argentina, and we took a tour to Buenos Aries province. The bee apiary was located in Azul in Buenos Aries state. This beekeeper has over 2000+ hives Opening the hives With many many beekeepers around there was lots and lots of questions, from all the different nationalities. […]
We’ve stated to extract the honey, the extraction process is where you use a extractor to spin the honey frames from the hives around in a circle. Below shows a picture of the empty extractor. The bits you see in the extractor is wax capings from the frames. The centrifugal force, forces out the honey […]
We’ve just taken off the first frames of honey. We’ve got a new machine for uncapping the wax from the frame so we can get the honey out. You can see it below, it works like a nail press. You put the frame in and then press down the lever a few times and hey […]
The clear boards have gone on, these boards make the bees go down to the brood chamber so that we can remove the honey crop from the supers (the supers are the boxes that contain the honey). AboveĀ shows a clearer board before it goes on the hive and in the background you can see […]
The honey is still comming in as you can see in the Pictuers below Himalayan Balsam is the current nectar provider at the moment.
Supersedure is the process by which an old queen bee is replaced by a new queen. Supersedure may be initiated due to old age of a queen or a diseased or failing queen. As the queen ages her pheromone output diminishes. We had a Supersedure cell when we inspectied hives, you can see this in […]
Trying to catch queens is all ways a difficult task, here is one of the techniques that we use. its best to keep the queen in the lower brood chamber of the hive, we do this using a queen excluder, shown below The queen should be marked, but a handy way of trapping the queen […]