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Testing gasvape for the first time
Just arrived- just in time for treating the bees for varroa . Gasvape heats the oxcilic acid tablets turning it into the gas we require to treat the bees at this time of year So i had a few reports this morning that friends of mine are getting friend requests from an new profile I am supposed to of opened Do not accept any friend requests from any profile that claims to represent meI only have one profile on facebook and it can be accessed from here https://www.facebook.com/gerry.walsh1 please delete any friend requests from any other profile claiming to be me and report those profiles to facebook as spam   Register now for taking part in the BIG WASP SURVEY
The only difference is that if you are outside of the UK you will have to post the results back at your own expense - but sure hey - ain't that a great excuse to drop into your local post office and buy one of them new stamps with the bees on them Catching a swarm
So a few weeks ago I was called by the Health and Safety Officer from Tegral Building Products in Athy to come help with some advice as they thought they had a swarm of bees on their property.
At the time they called me it turned out that they had a lot of scout bees looking around the roof of the building in the video below..The scout bees had in mind to bring the main swarm to the attic of the building belonging to Tegral Just back from holidays I had very little equipment with me at home , but I got a couple of nuc box's and set them up around the building.the scout bees were interested in. I then realised that I had to get my smoker which was with my main apiary near Newbridge. An hour and a half later when I returned from my apiary I was in the process of lighting my smoker to try chase the bees out of the roof of the building when the main swarm arrived and headed straight into one of the bait box's ( also called a nuc box ) How lucky were Tegral - because if there was no bait box there for the bees I imagine they would of swarmed into the attic of the building to set up their new home. Imagine the headache of taking the roof off the building - getting a bee vacuum ( which i dont have ) and having to take the bees out of the roof . Check out the video below ( from Tegral's Facebook page ) to see the swarm arriving
So the bees went into the bait box and began setting up their new home
Moving the bees took place at 6am
We decided to move the bees away from Tegral. At the time the weather was fantastic and we needed to be at the bait box early in the morning and try get as many of the bees before they began leaving the hive to start their days work. Even at 05:45 in the morning the temperatures were over 14C and the bees were flying - so we closed up the hive and moved them elsewhere
How the bees are doing since being moved from Tegral
Since the swarm was saved , Tegral Building Products have bought 2 of the swarm traps from beesupplies.ie to encourage swarming bees not to swarm into the roof's of any of their properties.
We'd like you to do the same and purchase a swarm trap or provide a location where swarm traps can be located. The swarm traps cost €80 plus delivery and need to be painted to help them become weather proof so that when a swarm moves into one - they can stay in that box for may years to come ( the box can be moved with the bees in them ) How you can help !
If you would like to sponsor a bait box to help save the bees or if your have a location we could put a bait box up to encourage swarming bees into - please get in touch using the contact form below
Have a listen to myself and Ger O Neil on KFM who picked up the story and interviewed us at the end of July
Have a listen to the podcast from the Kildare Today show on KFM from Thursday 26 July
The article about beekeeping starts at the 21 minute mark
If you would like to donate ( any amount ) towards buying some swarm traps - please use this link or the button above. Swarm traps cost upto €80 each ( Plus delivery charges )
Check out some swarms of bees arriving to nuc box'sLinks and Credits
Bee colony inspection
Swarm of bees caught at the end of June , quick inspection to see how they are doing . Last week 2 frames of eggs , this week 6 frames of eggs. Last week they had 2 liters of fees , this week all feed taken down.
Clean up Corfu
Just a shot video of what we saw across the island of Corfu in Greece during June 2018. Needless to say , we will not be going back to Greece as tourists until the problem with rubbish is fixed.
REGISTER AT WWW.WORLDSLARGESTSKINNYDIP.IE
SCHEDULE FOR THE DAY http://kickingtheshiteoutofcancer.com/2018/04/14/schedule-of-the-day/ To set up online donation - https://www.idonate.ie/event/1824_worlds-largest-skinny-dip.html Ladies join this years Strip and Dip where we are going to not just break the World Skinny Dipping Record we are gonna smash it. This will be our 6th Dip and so far we have raised €153,000 for Childrens Cancer. Raising money again this year for Aoibheann's Pink Tie the wonderful childrens cancer charity. Come celebrate with a herd of mad women, some celebrating getting out the other side of cancer, some still living with the disease, some remembering loved ones lost to cancer and celebrate womanhood. This is the best day in my every year just ask anyone who has attended. The most liberating, uplifting, emotional day ever - but don't forget the craic - you laugh from start to finish and come out beaming. Please invite your friends to come along.
Welcome to a swarm of bees
23rd May 2018, 13:25 and I hear a swarm of bees arriving to the swarm trap in he back garden. 13:35 and they are all mostly inside . A ten minute job , fantastic to see the bees Swarming BAIT HIVES TO LURE SWARMSNo matter how good beekeepers are at swarm control, we all lose swarms from time to time. Each year a huge proportion of swarms are lost completely because beekeepers have offered them nothing to take up residence in and they fly off to distance places. With bait hives what we are doing is stacking the odds in our favour by creating an attractive location, with the most desirable conditions that bees would want for a new home. This will not encourage hives in the area to swarm but serves only to provide a safe home for bees that has already decided to reproduce and split. Luring swarms with bait hives can be a way to get started in beekeeping. It isn’t the easiest way but it’s worth the extra effort. Besides, if it works, who doesn’t like free bees?  Safety First! Location has everything to do with luring a swarm and the essential part is putting the bait hive in the right place. Ideally the bait hive should be in full sun with an entrance that is facing south and has no flight obstruction and between 9 to 15 feet off the ground which is the flying height of foraging and scout bees. This height naturally get them far enough up off the ground and away from most of their predators. Fifteen feet might be the most ideal height, but wherever the bait hives are placed they will need to be taken down and working on a ladder while balancing a hive full of bees, wearing gloves and a bee suit and trying to keep in contact with a ladder can be a nervous experience and there is no swarm worth getting injured over. Place the bait hive as high as you can while still being able to take it down safely. 9 to 15 feet off the ground produces the best results, but placing it within arms reach will work nearly as good. I have caught swarms at 15 feet but I've also caught them 18 inches off the ground. Most of my bait hives are on garage or low pitched sheds roofs. Some beekeepers just don’t manage their swarm control very well and every year there are hot spots for swarming and we get dozens of calls from concerned householders about scout bees checking out the air vents, cavities, attics, front porch canopies and sheds in that area. If we all had bait hives out then it would stop all this inconvenience to the general public. Once bees have swarmed and have flown away from a beekeepers apiary, then they are lost to that beekeeper and it’s a lot better for them to go into a bait hive than into the roof of a neighbour’s house. A swarm might be a prize to a beekeeper but it’s a very intimidating pest to your neighbour. Bait hive sizeSize matters when it comes to choosing your bait hive. Hives will be sending out their Scout bees (surveyors and architects) to check out all the local cavities for several weeks before they actually swarm. They are looking for a cavity that will be large enough to allow them to move into and expand into a full size colony. A prime swarm’s preference is a cavity of about 40 litres (a little larger than a National brood box); well up off the ground. Entrance should be near the bottom of the hive and about 2 to 3 inches in length which is small enough for the bees to defend. For second and subsequent swarms that are issued from the same colony, then a Nucleus size Box will do just fine. The problem is, you don’t know the potential size of the swarm that is checking out your bait hive and if you don’t offer them enough space then they may pass up your bait hive for another home. I have had scout bees intensely checking out a nuc box in my garden and then the activity ceases but started up again a week later and had a small swarm (cast) arrive soon after. This meant that the main or prime swarm with the old queen turned down the nuc because it was too small but was an acceptable size for secondary smaller swarms or casts. How many traps and what distance. Having several swarm traps out increases your odds so put as many traps out as possible. Empty hives that are sitting idle in your shed won’t catch anything there. Get them out outside and put some old frames into them before the swarming season. Swarms do not generally move very far from their parent colonies and the average distance is about ½ mile (800m). The waggle dance is a unique figure-eight dance of the honeybee and it is performed by workers so that they can give their colony information about the direction and distance to the best nectar, pollen, water sources, or to potential new hive locations in their area. Bees can’t give a precise distance for anything under a hundred metres and the waggle dance will just convey that the attraction is just in the general area, so its a lot easier for them to pin point a bait hive that is placed well outside your apiary. I put one bait hive in my apiary and then place another’s out about 100 hundred metres or more . Watching bee activity increase at the entrance of the bait hive in my apiary is a good indicator of swarming activity Swarm Lures Lemon Grass Oil is a excellent essential oil to use a a lure You need to bait your traps as effectively as you can and the key is the attractant. Virtually every action taken by bees within and outside the colony is based upon pheromones, so swarming and bait hives are no different Commercial Pheromone lures: There are commercial swarm lures available and some have had extremely good success. Most commercial lures attempt to copy the Queens pheromone which is a natural attractant to honeybee scouts looking for a new home and is somewhat of a Lemony fragrance. These Pheromone swarm lures can be purchased from most bee supply companies and come in a small Plastic tube which slowly releases their vapours. Google, swarm lures and you will see what is available. Lemon Grass Oil: Pheromone scent lures can get expensive and when setting out several traps, combined with the fact that as time goes by the scents start to diminish. If your new to beekeeping and do not have access to old comb, then another option that has good results is using Lemon Grass Oil which can be purchased at most health stores. When using Lemon Grass Oil only a small amount is needed as it is strongly scented and it can be refreshed from time to time. You only need a few drops per bait hive so a small bottle lasts several years. I use an ear cleaning cotton ball and dab the oil inside the hive. A drop inside the entrance will make it more inviting and another couple of drops directly onto top of the frames. Three or four drops at the most and then place the q-tip at the back of the box and it can be repeated every couple of weeks. Or put four or five drops of lemon grass oil on a piece of paper towel, and put it in a Ziplock bag with several small holes on one side of the bag and place it at the back of the hive, hole side up. The use of Lemon Grass Oil combined with Old Dark Comb is an extremely good attractant.. Used Hive EquipmentTo try and ensure that the scout bees will pick your bait hive, you will need every attraction at your disposal to enhance the attention of the scout bees and the best things that attracts bees is used hive materials, especially used brood combs. Used equipment has absorbs the smell of its previous tenants therefore making it an excellent natural attractant. Old brood frames produce good results, but be especially careful of the source of your old comb as it can introduce disease to a new colony. A brood box or nucleus that has been well used is good. Use an old solid floor and pre used crown boards , in fact pre used everything is best. Try not to use open mesh floor but it that all you have then cover the mesh with cardboard as it gives a better secure feeling for the bees. In the absence of used brood comb, foundation has some attractiveness and is clearly better than nothing. But used in conjunction with another pheromones it greatly increases your odds as bees have a distinct preference for pheromones and the more the better. How many Frames should I place in my bait hive: If your bait hive is somewhere that is monitored regularly like the roof of your garden shed then space is everything? Place no more than 5 spaced out frames in a full hive or 3 frames in a nucleus Box. One central and one near each edge. All the time we are trying to give the scouts the elusion that there is enough space for the colony to grow to their fill potential. If it is in an out apiary and you will not be back for over a week, then place 2 used brood frames near front of the box and fill up the rest of the hive with frames of foundation and you can place an empty super underneath as this also give them the feeling that they have enough space to expand into and prevents the swarm from filling out wild uneven comb in the empty space in-between the frames. A used drawn out super over an empty super will work perfect too. Scout bees and swarms arrivingIf the bait hive is positioned where it can be observed it can be very entertaining to watch the different types of scout bee behaviour at the entrance and to know what is behind it. For weeks before a colony is going to swarm, scout bees will have been checking out all the available cavities in the local area and this could be up to a dozen sites or more. Most of the scout bee activity at the bait hives will be between 11 and 5 in the day and the activity will diminish as the day gets later. At first there will only be a few bees entering, exiting and hanging around the outside. These are the first of the scout bees assessing their potential new home. They are the surveyors and architects and are measuring up the interior before reporting back to the parent hive with their waggle dance. Their enthusiasm is then transmitted to other bees that will also visit the site. Such is the activity in the parent hive that sometimes you will see a forager with pollen on it legs checking out your bait hive on its way home. They will then start selecting and rejecting potential sites until they come to a decision on their final choice. This is done by gradually ignoring the scout bees that are preferring their waggle dance for a location that is not suitable, or by actually head butting the performing dancer to get her to stop. As swarming looms nearer in the parent hive, activity will be increasing at the entrance of your bait hive. If the number of scout bees rises to about 50 at any one time, then your bait hive has made it to the final selection. You will often see scout bees getting over excited and actually giving a waggle dance on the front of the bait hive to other scout bees. When you see this level of activity, you can be fairly sure that a swarm is about to arrive in the next 24 hours. If you see a lot of activity at the entrance one day and none the following day, then your potential swarm has either picked a more suitable home, or a beekeeper have managed to get their swarm control done in the nick of time. Some times you will observe competing scout bees from different hives fighting at the entrance of the bait hive, meaning you could set up a second bait hive not to far away from the first. When the swarm arrives there will be tens of thousands of bees swirling around in the air and it can be a very intimidating experience for your neighbours. From a swarm arriving to all the bees having entered the bait hive is about 20 minutes or less and if nobody was around, they would know no difference. If you have not seen the swarm arrive and are unsure whether or not it is just a lot of scout bees, then watch for a steady stream of bees coming and going at the entrance and a good indication is bees flying straight in with pollen on their legs. If you are keeping the bees in the same area then you will need to move them straight away. I have moved them within minutes of all the bees entering the bait hive, but the best time to move your bait hive is in the cool of the evening after the bees have stopped flying or first thing in the morning before they have started flying again. CreditsKindly reproduced with the permission of Keith Pierce who originally posted this article in Irish Beekeeping group on Facebook Click here to view a swarm I caught last May
Dandelions - how important they are to biodiversity
With Biodiversity week starting next week , here you can see how important that Dandelions are to our biodiversity. As well as being a vital food source to the bee's - who make wonderful honey from dandelions, they are a also a important food for our feathered friends who are busy raising chicks at this time of year. |
Gerry Walsh
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