12-14 members of Shipston Beekeepers assembled at David and Margery’s home apiary on Saturday 17th June for the latest Members Visit.
The Sun was shining, it was nice and warm and we were soon suited and booted raring to go.. After a briefing from David on how the visit would run we split into three groups led by David, Margery and myself and set about inspecting our group of hives.
It was great to see the various activities going on mid season, including hive splits made up as part of swarm prevention; Queen rearing from good stocks; and honey production colonies.
David’s group of hives included a Demaree split, with a brood box containing a separate colony above the supers separated by a board. In one box eagle eyed Mike spotted there was an abundance of drone foundation which the bees were reluctant to draw out and was put there by mistake during a busy period.
Margery’s group included inspecting a colony with laying workers and shaking them out some distance away from the hives, along with a well assembled Nuc in full Queenright working order!
My group, which included Cathy, Bridget, Ryan, Paul and Julie, went through another double brood demaree split looking for a new queen in the top box. we didn’t see her but did see eggs so we know they were queenright. We also looked through two Nucs resulting from hive splits again looking for evidence of mated queens. One appeared to be queenless and the other we successfully found and marked in glorious red!
After the session we all adjourned to the kitchen and patio area for some wonderful home made refreshments including cakes, mint cordial, home made apple juice, teas and coffees and a sample of Jackie’s family’s Elderflower Liqueur which looked splendid and slipped down far too easily at lunchtime!
It was so good to see their apiary in full swing at the bottom of the garden and some great examples of what docile bees really look like…. I shall use them as my new benchmark when assessing temperament of my own bees.
Massive thanks to David and Margery for putting on such a fabulous visit.
Graham Franklin
All photos courtesy of Angela Mason