April Bees feed on Rape

Three colonies survived the wet and cold spring, two quite strongly the third severely depleted in numbers. 
All have discovered the rape crop in fields within a mile or so from the apiary and have plenty of honey stores remaining.

Golden yellow pollen seen adhering to bees in addition to that on the leg sacks.

Mouse guard left in place on the weaker colony

Good numbers working well

Cathedral Top-Bar-Hive / Learning how to help Bees

My first two seasons keeping bees in these CTBH hives has seen colonies both flourish and others perish. Failures have been due to mismanagement while learning the most elementary handling procedures, and failure to recognise what was happening in the hive.

Queenless for about ten days the workers have laid multiple eggs now seen here as drone grubs.

Symptomatic of queenlessness: a scattered pattern of behaviour - many workers wandering away from the comb.

Numbers at this point were good, but the colony was to fail from this point onwards. Feeding proved to be fruitless. 

Listing the first four or five causes of loss here :
1. Opening hive too frequently during winter and overfeeding.
2. Failing to recognise queen loss and the need to act immediately to remedy with a new queen or combine the queenless colony with another.
3. Shaking out a second colony into a new hive without first isolating the queen. She perished or had flow before the transfer and the colony slowly dwindled away. If I had taken the trouble to transfer a few of the brood combs from the donor hive my efforts may have stood a better chance of success.
4. Failure to protect a third colony against robbing by wasps. The colony had ample stores but perished nonetheless. A number of other reasons may have contributed and so the empty hive is undergoing sterilisation.
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On the plus side I have three surviving colonies that are all bringing in pollen and so will begin to build up. I have fed fondant in the last fourtnight. Despite a very wet spring and spells of freezing rain and snow, the surviving colonies seem quite strong during the brief interludes of milder weather.

A good comb with brood in all stages of development (July 2017)

By way of treating for Veroa Mite I took the recommendations of the Devon Beekeepers Association to heart and chose to treat with a vapour from heated oxalic acid crystals. The kit is obtainable by mail order and consists of a small 12volt crucible to vaporise about 5g of crystals within the hive. A suitable breathing mask must be worn at this time to avoid inhalation of caustic fumes but these quickly disperse and the bees do not seem to become at all agitated. Done in December while little or no brood is present any mites present are exposed and fall to the bottom of the hive.  Last inspected in mid April 2018 and doing well - bringing in plenty of pollen.

At top right are seen new laid eggs and bottom left are seen curled grubs a few days old

More grubs and some sealed cells busy with young nurse bees

Deflated

I am not writing this for you to read but for me to re-read.
Normally content and optimistic but not today with the realisation that I am likely to be related to those who would do me down and profit from my trusting nature.
To help rid myself of this malady I regurgitate these rotten findings, like I have recently had to do after consuming  a spoonful of  stale chicken pate. 

The trigger was finding the front offside wheel of my Volvo V70 flat and dangerously worn on its inner edge, due to a bad misalignment in tracking.  Dissapointed with my trusted local garage for having caused this at a recent job, related to an engine drive belt fitting and/or the later replacement of a front wheel bearing. Both my daughter and wife were similarly unhappy with the work done on their own cars here.  A  second screen washer motor  failure and a brake pad sensor error respectively, neither of which should have happened. I cannot afford to give the benefit of the doubt again.

Each garage I have employed to care for my vehicles over many years has behaved in this way, with the exception of the one that re-bored an MG TC engine block in 1964 at a cost of £65.
I escaped another garage rip-off attempt by a VW main dealer that said I needed a new alternator. A smaller garage fixed the fault with a high pressure jet of air for one tenth of the cost. 

A Bee in my Bonnet

My loving wife and confident, told me early this morning my hair looked SCRAGGY and to expect a haircut later today. What will be - Will be.  But I was treated to a cup of tea in bed, a small price to pay for straight honesty.

On the radio, the BBC is polluting airwaves with moralist phylisosophical rants that tell everyone, prepared to listen, how to think. Followed by some dreadfull  barbershop choir.

Here is my Apiary news letter. 

The early December inspection revealed one colony has perished and the hive to be plundered by wasps, and later by numbers of bees from the three remaining hives nearby.
Veroa treatment was carried out on the three surviving hives and all is well with these colonies. I prepared myself with bee suit and respirator and chose a day with very light airs. About 1.5 grams of oxalic acid was vaporized in the base of the hive and the proceedure from start to finish lasted about 10 minutes for each one. As usual each hive behaves slightly differently from the next. One is quite defensive and attack my veil. No.Two is oblivious to the job in hand and continue flying, No. Three is much more sensative to my touching the hive and create a loud buzz  at the slightest disturbance. This latter colony is one given me by my brother and a split from early last year -  it was rapidly running short of space. Now it looks to be flourishing again and most likely to require splitting once more, come the spring.
Little else to do as regards the bees appart from closing off the veroa undertrays and plugging the extra vent holes.  The vaporizor is a simple 12v device with a long handle and heated cup connected to a battery.  The respirator mask is worn to avoid breathing in the noxious fumes.

Land of the Free

"Land of the Free" once included the ordinary American, but today includes the freedom of a US cop to kill as this cop did, equipped with an AR-15 rifle with the phrase “You’re F—ed” etched onto his weapon.
This cops' own hip camera records the murder, yet he is acquitted  ; The victim face down.

Meanwhile at the well defended White House, sits a neurotic, narcissistic president in office clearly unfit for any such chair.

Little wonder then, why many settlers and their descendants dig-in with a bomb shelter, arm themselves to the teeth, store provisions, head for the hills, or emigrate like never before.

An American president in bed with Russia and Israel. A supporter of the National Rifle Association.

Courtesy of the Washington Post is the report "I study Liars" and it says quite a lot about Trump;  Perhaps that is exactly how he wants to be remembered.