[Sudanpan]

Yay
We've been waiting and waiting to get started with beekeeping but the weather has been throwing curve balls so we have only just got our starter colony 
The nucleus comes from an apiary about 8 miles away - we collected them this evening and they have been  put in place at the other end of the filed. They are all shut in right now and I've been told to open up the door tomorrow morning.
I've been doing the part 1 beekeeping course run here at the Duchy of Cornwall so hopefully I have learnt enough not to kill them - our local bekeeper assoc are really helpful as well.
 

[Mammyshaz]

That is exciting 

We loved the thought of keeping our own bees  as every year we have bees nesting in hole around the allotment and fond them very fascinating.
After looking into it we were quite taken back about how much was involved.
Chickened out pretty quickly 

Good luck with your new arrivals  it will be interesting to know how you get on. 

[Beeducked]

Congratulations!


I love my bees and can waste hours just watching them come and go (been quite a lot of going recently what with a couple of swarms!).

[Moleskins]

That is exciting 

We loved the thought of keeping our own bees  as every year we have bees nesting in hole around the allotment and fond them very fascinating.
After looking into it we were quite taken back about how much was involved.
Chickened out pretty quickly 

Good luck with your new arrivals  it will be interesting to know how you get on. 

Keeping bees is easy, until something goes wrong then it's rocket science.
That's what keeps it interesting.

[Rosadollymixture]

Hi
Good luck with your new bees.  As long as you've got a good support network around you and a reliable mentor you'll be fine.

Just look forward to the honey.

[Rosemary]

 

[Sudanpan]

So - our bee nucleus arrived on Tuesday evening and since then it has been PEEING down and blowing a hooley
I asked the beekeeper from whom I got the nucleus whether I should provide any supplementary feed and she said no as they had some stores on the frames. When she had the nuc she had them in a nuc box. She transferred them into my brood box (3 frames worth) and she put dividers on either side of the 'working' frames, with the rest of the brood box filled with foundation only frames.
It looks like the weather is going to be such that I won't get a chance to check on them until at least Sunday 
Is there anything else I can do to help them out?
Thanks
Tish

[Mammyshaz]

That's a shame!   This darned weather 

[Small Farmer]

OH checked our 4 colonies yesterday and found no eggs in any of them.  She reckons the workers are inhibiting the queen because of the lousy weather

[Sudanpan]

Feeling very depressed right now 


I haven't opened the hive but looking through the door I can see quite few dead bees lying on the mesh floor and others hanging off and through the queen excluder (we put this below the brood box just as a deterrent to the colony taking a dislike to their new surroundings) - very lethargic and very quiet    No activity to speak off around the hive (but then again the wind is very bad right now)


I had some sugar syrup and gave a few drops to the couple of bees that were on the outside of the hive- they lapped it up. Should I put a feeder on for the rest?? This would inevitably mean opening the hive in this crappy weather but I really don't know if its a lack of food that is the reason for the lethargy or just that the colony was not big enough to:
 a) survive the move
b) survive the weather


 

[Beeducked]

If there is just 3 frames of brood and no stores then I would feed them in  this weather. My 2 nucs were made up with 3 frames of brood and 2 of stores and I thought that was the standard set up for a nut although I am pretty new at this.


How far away is the person who gave you the nuc? If it is within 3 miles then all the flying bees (even in this weather) will have headed home and you will just have the nurse bees etc and brood and they will rapidly eat any stores on the brood frames.


I would definitely feed them. If you have a contact feeder you could just put that over the hole in the crown board for the time being so that you don't have to fully open up the hive but then at least you would be fairly confident that they aren't starving.

[Beeducked]

Sorry, just noticed you said 8 miles. Would still feed them.

[OldGaffer]

I agree with feeding the bees, they need to draw out the new comb in your hive, I am assuming you have new frames with just foundation.


By the way, do you really mean dividers? Surely they are follower boards, i.e. frame sized boards, not hive size dividers, as you still want to allow the bees to draw out the other frames. Personally, in warm weather, I just put the frames from the Nuc in the centre of the hive brood box and then the new frames of foundation either side. But. then I do put a rapid feeder on top, (even if there is a field of OSR next door) until the new frames are drawn.


Enjoy you bees, I hope they bring you hours of fun!

[Sudanpan]

Thanks for the info 
I've put some syrup in a feeder on the top of the crown board.


Yes the dividers are just frame dividers - the beekeeper we got the nucleus from asked us to bring them along with our brood box etc for when she transferred the frames from her nuc box for journey to us.


When I properly inspect (fingers crossed this will be Sunday depending on the weather) I was going to see if everything was ok and then take the dividers out. I'll make sure the feeder remains topped up while they draw out the foundation frames.


I soooo hope they make it through this rough period -  the vision of all the bees littering the mesh floor was really heartbreaking for a newbie like me 

[Tiva Diva]

Keep feeding them - even if the weather does improve: they've a lot of work to do.
Don't worry too much about the dead bees, you're nuc will have workers of all ages and summer workers don't live very long. Could you see if the dead bees were workers or drones? If they're drones it may well be that the colony's booting them out if supplies are a bit low and the weather's crap.