Best Nights Beekeeping / Geopathic Stress Lines

After a bad day at work I was looking to the bees to help me chill. As I arrived on site at 6pm my wife phoned to say that there was a power cut at home (though this was not just our property) but I was allowed to stay with the bees! Phew, but was I stressed!!
Sure enough an hour later and I was completely chilled; the lovely change in weather has put my bees into over drive. All have stores and needed supers to store more- the fondant can be put back into reserve for now. The ladies were all in fine fettle and not least bothered by me being there. Definitely the best beekeeping so far this year.
To further my feel good factor a swarm had arrived into a nucleus hive, with lots of nectar, and eggs being laid in the freshly drawn comb. I got my dowsing rods out and sure enough I had left this nuc on a geopathic stress line purely by accident but further proof of what John Harding had told me. Thank you again John. Oh and I had a text while I was there to say the power had come back on!

Queen Failures

Due to the really poor weather of late, I am having to take drastic action on some colonies where virgin queens have hatched but failed to get mated. It hurts me to say that these queens have had to be culled because they were drone laying and frames of eggs have been put into these hives from other healthy colonies in the hope of raising a new queen. However bearing in mind that the season is on the wane and assuming a new queen is raised and gets mated it will be mid August before she gets into lay and that means that colony numbers may be very low as autumn and winter approach! This is the worst season I have known with these extra stresses in addition to problems the bees already face.

Monsoon

I started my beekeeping in lovely sunny weather about 7.45 am. The bees were flying and well behaved. I had to abandon my inspections in monsoon rain, thunder, lightning, and huge hail stones just a few hours later, the bees not surprisingly very unhappy. No wonder they are struggling to get any food.

Wet Weather Worry Continued

Then there is the problem that virgin queens cannot get mated , or properly mated !!

Wet weather worry

The continued wet weather is of growing concern; colonies are beginning to run short of food. The low temperatures and lack of sunshine means little nectar yield from plants for the bees to forage. Whats more the weather is preventing proper colony inspections and the bees seem more defensive (not surprising given they have little food and are being disturbed in less than good conditions).

Nothing Better

I may have said before but it's worth repeating; there is no greater thrill than to see a new queen, mated and laying well. Today I saw several following artificial swarms done last month. :-)

Magic!

Having been given royal approval to go check my colonies today, following an awful weeks weather which prevented any inspections, the weather and the bees were just magic! A warm sunny day and the bees were in fine fettle, I was able to lose myself with my bees and check all colonies on my main sites; somewhat a relief after not getting out all week. It was summer today!