ANTSTORE World of Ants

[adam james]

OK ok i know wot your thinking , But give them a chance , Honey bees are very much like ants well all social bees are , but honey bees are specially cool. Unlike ants you can manipulate them to produce queens and also unlike ants you can add a new queen easily and there fore not lose the colony .

Well my bees are being keept in a observation hive , I will be able to look inside the hive and see the goings on ,Also the hive is connected to a outside entrence so my bees can come and go as they please . I am going to let you know all my experiances my joys and my upsets and hopfully this is going to be a interesting one .

I will add some pictures of my setup so you will be able to see for yourself wots going on .

My bees dont arrive till the start of febuary so will post some pics of the empty setup for now


Please use link for discussions about my bees

http://www.antstore.net/viewtopic.php?t=7023

[adam james]

Here are a few pics of my bee hive setup ( Bees arriving in febuary )

[adam james]

Hello all so today i have got my new bee colony , hurray . Well there are two frames with brood , pollen and lots of honey stores on and loads of workers . And i have also seen the queen who isnt doing alot yet . The bees have settled in today and the queen has livened up. The workers have found the exit to outside and have been flying out and doing orinertation flights to see where there new homes entrance is. Hopfully all will be well tonight and all workers will return to the hive and tomorow they will start foraging for nector and pollen. And i will load some pictures up tomorow aswell.

[adam james]

22/05/08

I have had alot of problems with my colony and have found out bees are alot harder to keep then ants. My bees arived all well and good ( well so i thort ) but the fact the colony was small suggested somthing was not correct. The brood frames were infested with wax moth ( for those who dont know wot it is , its a caterpillar that eats the bees wax and in doing so kills the brood) The frames were removed and taken to the freezer to kill all nasty pests on them. In doing this i had no brood left my colony was already small and now were in the risk of failing. I have got a full brood frame of my bee freind with healthy pupae , larva on .The bees have accepted it and for the past 3 days i have wacthed the colony growing in size due to the ever amount of workers hatching. The queen has took her role in laying in the cells once they have been cleaned out and the foraging workers are bringing plenty of necter and are loaded up with pollen on returning to the nest. The colony is on its way to recovery

Changes to the observation tank = There have been many changes i have had to do to the tank the bees are in , as i have watched on diffrent accasions i have had to make slight adjusments to accomadate the bees activitys . Theses include fitting a larger exit tube , changing frame arrangment and i have added wire mesh to the floor to help keep any mites etc to fall throu and not get back up to the bees. I have also added openings for three feeders which contain bee candy, honey and pollen paty.

Photos will be added shortly

Greetings

Adam

[adam james]

25/05/08

The bee colony is booming , population is ever increasing. The queen is going around and as soon as the new workers have hatched and cleaned the cells she relays in them. There are now larva all in the cells so on the 8th or 9th day the cells will be cealed and on the 21st day i will have a load more workers .

There are some new pictures below hope you like

[adam james]

29/05/08

The colony has been moved to anouther setup and this time its alot better and bigger. It houses 6 brood frames and 3 suppers and thats enought for a full grown 3500 bee colony . Also i will be replacing the queen with a younger new one as my queen is hardly laying and not keeping up with maintaining the population.

Photos coming soon

[adam james]

Well heres some pictures of my new observation hive setup.

[adam james]

02/06/08

The colony are doing extremly well , pollen is coming in evryday and the workers are collecting loads of nector and processing it to honey and filling the cells with it.

The queen is not doing as well as she should be and egg production is decreasing. Also the amount of eggs that dont hatch and larva that die early is considerable. The colony is in full health now and no pests or dieses can be spotted so time for a new queen.

I have ordered a new carnolian queen and shes due to arrive tomorow or wendsday so hopfully she will start laying and the colony will have a population explosion.

Any Questions or advise you would like to add , could you please use this link http://www.antstore.net/viewtopic.php?t=7023

[adam james]

03/06/08

I have spoken to the bee keeping company who are supplying me with my carnolian queen and they have explained i will be getting her on tues the 10th june .

The colony are doing very well many of the larva have now been capped over and will emerge as workers in 12 days. The queen is taking her role extremly realaxed and it surprises me the workers havent supersedured her by now. The weather has been very wet the past two days so all foraging has stoped. But the bees use the dry periods in between to leave and clean themselves out and then dive back into the hive.

Any Questions or advise you would like to add , could you please use this link http://www.antstore.net/viewtopic.php?t=7023

[adam james]

11/06/08

Omg where do i start well my queen has finally showed her age , egg production is coming to a slow end , eggs less and less and new workers less.

But my new queen arrived yestarday so there is hope , well there was , I put her in her queen cage and hung her on the brood frame so the workers get use to her smell while they slowly chew throu the cage and release her . this morning a few workers got in and were cleaning her and feeding her but a few tried to sting her so i quickly got her out. She has been sealed back in the queen cage and put back in . Hopfully they will get used more to her smell again and upon realeaseing start taking good care of her.

Any Questions or advise you would like to add , could you please use this link http://www.antstore.net/viewtopic.php?t=7023

[adam james]

Hello evrybody Just a quick update om my honey bee colony . Got a new colony in july and ist going great . Now winters here the colonys slowed right down and workers are dying off. The queen has slowly slowed her laying down and is now producing just enought eggs to replace lost workers .

Heres some new pics . The new hive is just a frame with perspex sides and two pieces of wood clamping a piece of comb to which the bees will slowly fill and extend down. The exit tube has been narrowed as i had a problem with a wasp colony trying to pilage my hive so i narrowed the tube to allow the bees to defend it easyer

[adam james]

Friday/19/12/08


The Honey bee colony are in winter hibernation and have been since september , Slowly the colony is reducing in size as workers die off. The queen is still laying in the middle of the group of bees which are now clustered into a loose group. New workers are being born and new eggs being laid but these are few. Collecting pollen and nector and producing honey has stopped completly and on warm days the bees come out to do cleansing flights to empty there waste then they come straight back in. Honey has been given by a feeding tube to keep them from starvation. The bees wait for febuary when the slightly increasing tempertures and early flowers mean pollen stocks and nector can increase and the queen will begin her full laying cycle and the colonys population can explode again.

This will be there second summer and most likely the queens last in my obsevation hive for when june comes the queen will produce anouther and will swarm with her sister workers to create a colony somwhere else. But two harsh months of unpredictable weather they need to get throu first so i wish my bees goodluck.

Adam








Monday/02/03/09


The colonys has survived the harshness of winter. Extremly small in size but there. The warm weather has allowed the workers the freedom to forage and pollen has started to flow into the hive. The queen has noticed this and now with a rise in brood food being passed around she has begun to lay. They still have a long way to go to build them selves up but at least they have started.


Photos soon to follow


Any Questions or advise you would like to add , could you please use this link viewtopic.php?t=7023
member

[adam james]

30/04/09


Well the colony had a promising start , plenty of pollen coming in and the queen has started to egg lay. But the colony size has still not grown and by now the queen should be reaching her full egg laying rate which could be anything from 1200 to 2000 eggs a day, thats alot more then the 100 or so shes laying at the moment. I have recieved a brood frame with lots of brood from a freind hoping this added population will boost the colony. I have now to wait a few weeks to see how things progress. With this being my first spring with my colony and the hope they will build up i have built a brand new hive. It has glass panels instead of perspex so ensures better visability and it has been eguiped with low wattage heating cable to keep it warm so the bees have less work to do and has panels that can be slid over the glass to darken the inside. It looks alot more profesional then the bodged up job i did last time and strangely this time it also cost less to build lol £92 for all materials needed. Pictures will be following next week when i get some spare time to upload them.

I am hoping my small colony makes it throu yet anouther uncertain period as the honey bees are in decline as it is.

Regards

Adam


ANY TIPS OR ADVICE OR EVEN FEEDBACK YOU WISH TO LEAVE , PLEASE DO SO VIA MY DISSCUTION THREAD ON MY OBSERVATION HIVE CLICK THE LINK viewtopic.php?t=7023

[adam james]

Mon/18/05/09


Well hello all ill start by saying wot horrid and then lovely weather we are having. My observation hive has had a boost from a beekeeper near me. I have bought 3 new frames of brood and workers and added them to the colony. The queen was balled and nearly killed but she has survived and been accepted. The bees have started to make a queen cell so she may be overruled soon by her new daughter.


Wend/20/05/09


Colony life is going well but the queen is still not doing her job properly. She sticks her adomen into a cell to lay pulls it out and most of the time no egg. The workers are trying to rear anouther queen cell. They orignally built two but the queen has found one and destroyed it. The second one contains a healthy young larva and this weekend the cell is due to be capped.



PLEASE USE MY DISSCUTION THREAD TO TALK ABOUT MY HIVE . viewtopic.php?t=7023


Regards

Adam

[adam james]

Hello Guys , A freind of mine has a better camera then me so ive put some of the pictures he took of my hive on here. The hive is doing extremly well.

Hope you like

Adam