A settled life :)

Hello bloggers :)
its catch up time again, on the bee side of things both hives are performing brilliantly lol, Kim and myself checked them last week (1st time since b4 winter). Hive 1 is very busy in fact there seem to be more bee's now than there was last summer...and its not even april yet lol. We needed to rearrange the supers about a bit as i had left 2 supers of honey for the bees to survive winter. The down side was that the queen is being so busy laying eggs that she was already laying eggs amongst the honey cells so the queen excluder got moved and we have hopefully stopped that from happening. What was brilliant was the fact that the 2nd frame kim picked up i spotted the queen straight away...result!! lol. Hive 2 we just checked but we did not have the egg laying problem as there was only one super left for this hive over winter. So hive wise we are both very happy :) we will do a brood check this week as kim is off and the sun is due to still be shining for a while yet.
News in doors is that Kim has diversed her talents to card making and has been coming out with some lovely designs (i have even had a go with some steam punk designs) look up her site www.warrencrafts.co.uk and you will see what we mean :0 we are even getting the family involved with my daughter Karley doing 3d art work and my daughter in law possibly going into jewelry making :)

(one of our first rabbits)

The other good news where we are concerned is our rabbits due to the fact that Kim and myself like to keep busy (even though Kim is part time 3 days a week she still does 4 days with her craft business!!) we have our chickens, we have our bee's (produce & sell honey this year hopefully woo hoo) we have had a 5 year gap from breeding and showing rabbits....we realised we made more friends in the fancy than at any other time...so we are going back into it but on a smaller scale. It makes sure we have a social life and its something 'we' both enjoy lol in fact we both had a name for ourselves up and down the country at some point. We started the 1st internet site for rabbit breeders back in 1999 with nearly 2000 members at one point, Kim helped get a new colour recognised within the miniature lop (chocolate tort)
she helped in the design of a software programme for colour genetics in rabbits and became a judge for a while before she became disabled. I bred rare varieties and had best best in shows with thriantas,

 perlfees

and hulstlanders. After dropping into a big show last year

we were made to feel so welcome and missed very much that we decided to come back

and thats what is happeneing now. I was going to keep them in the space i had left in the garage but the smell we realised may effect kims stock of materials and cushions etc. so the only place was a space at the bottom of the garden which was very cramped and when a friend mentioned about the wild rabbits and possibility of mixi we were stumped on what to do...until the same friend said why dont we use 'The Villa' (our summer house) Not an easy choice but it made sense....ok its a bit posh for rabbits as its a games room (tv, stereo, dart board and pool table) every time we have people around no one uses it, its more of a 'look what i have' shed lol so thats what Kim and myself have decided. Its secure with an alarm fitted, it has a smoke alarm and its easy for Kim to get into which for me is always the priority :) (that and its dry and warm in the winter lol) so we are just waiting for the rabbit blocks to turn up and all stock will be moved into the villa then the outside area will be for the pets for sale stock...we are both looking foward to this new/old venture again :) will put pictures up soon as possible....until then l8ts my friends

Monthly updates :)

I have given up doing weekly or bi weekly even, so monthly it is (for now) that i get to write anything on this blog lol. So a quick run down on the last month....Christmas was quiet i made up some turkish delight vodka to go in the family hampers which Kim makes every year. Kim wanted me to dress as santa whilst out delivering but i thought enough kids probaly didnt like the guy for not getting the presents they really wanted without me driving around ho hoing with 6 bottles of vodka rolling around in the car. Christmas day was just myself and Kim for dinner although we did get visitors still. Les, Laura and the children came round to exchange, then Chris and Gemma popped round to flash an engagement ring off which was lovely Chris proposed xmas eve...had an arguement and slept on the couch christmas day......(they made up in the morning dont worry) Boxing day was over at Kay and Johns which was really nice then home in time for my daughter and her partner to pop round (no sign of my son though). January has flown by, nothing really happening except like most people we decided we need to get fit and loose some weight. As we already had a gym its been ok except its bloody cold down there and its a fight to get on the wii fit first.... luckily we had a spare TV after getting a new one as a christmas present to each other. After picking up a cheap wii we now get to exercise at the same time (i even set up a punch bag in there lol) the trouble is that it looks like a 'his & hers' now :)
February has brought snow finally

always looks nice but cold...especially down in the gym lol. Anyway nothing else really except Kim has to go into hospital to have her toncils out so i will write some more after she comes out :)

Late again tut tut

So much for doing this so soon after my last blog lol any way quick recap since last post well we had our Halloween party which was brilliant, the kid in me did the decorations :)

this was the hallway

The Kitchen :)

the living room (you can tell i like spiders :) )

the conseratory...with coffin bar lol

we even had outside done which was brilliant. We played a few games but my favourite was called 'make mine a mummy' which had you wrapping your partner in toilet rolls

i must admit i was crying at this point seeing family friends and my boss looking like this lol.
Anyway it was a good evening so hopefully we will be holding another in 2 years time as it took 4 days to set up and nearly 3 to put down phew :)

Still alive :)

Well its been a couple of days......ok so i lie lol its just that i get easily distracted with things :) (ask Kim she says i do all the time...) any way lets see whats been happening; because of the mild weather the bee's are still out foraging, hive 1 which is the more aggressive of the hives surprisingly does not have as many bees as hive 2 but there are times when it is certainly the busiest of the 2 hives. Hive 2 I took a super out as the bee's were not really doing much except filling brood with stores now in their readiness for winter, i took out the sugar syrup as well, as a lot of time it was going mouldy which is all i need; bee's with runny bottoms lol. It looks as though the drones have been kicked out of both hives but with the darker nights the bees are leaving it later to get back to the hives, which means i'm ending up with a few bee's sharing the lean to with the rabbits and chickens every evening :) which makes it fun when i'm feeding the rabbits and i'm getting bee's buzzing around me. Anyway i will leave the hives now until january when they may get some mite preventative (speaking to one of our club bee keepers) i will check once more b4 then to put mouse guards in and make sure stores are ok.

October has been a little quiet, though Kim and myself went to the London Championship show which was a nice day out....London Championship Show? whats that Steve? i hear you say :) well let me explain
back in 1999 Kim and myself went to a rabbit show in a little village hall near Colchester and became fascinated with the variety and colours you could get....we looked at maybe showing and breeding ourselves and started up with the minilop. Over the next few years we became very involved with 'the fancy' we had other breeds entering our shed, making up our own web site http://www.taraxstud.20m.com/  both of us becoming judges (Kim for the National Miniature Lop Club, and myself for the Rare Varieties Rabbit Club) We even ran our own local club with Kim being secretary and myself as show manager. We won a few best in shows, travelled around the country making an enormous amount of friends along the way. When Kim became disabled it basically all stopped  and the last 5 years we sort of dissapeared from the show scene. Well even though we got rid of all our equipement and stock we still kept 6 rabbits as pets, then when i saw an advert for the 2 day London Show i managed to persuade Kim to come along....at 1st Kim admitted she was very nervous about going and yet it turned out to be a fantastic day meeting lots of old friends, we had people asking advice on their stock, asking Kim about colour genetics (thats another story lol) and asking when are we both coming back into the fancy.

The  shows are not just about rabbits but also other small mammals such as rats, mice etc. for me it was the Thrianta rabbit as thats what i used to show, and what was great was that the Thriantas have broken away from the Rare Varieties Club to start their own club up now.

Kim ended up talking with everyone lol (this is Karen Malcolm of the Rare Varieties Club)

We even stayed to see the best in show being judged before we had to shoot off home.

Well by the time we got home we both decided we are going back into showing and breeding again but that will be next year as i need to clear the garage, order some eqipement as well as some new stock...so even more stuff for me to do lol.

So thats it for the moment the only other thing thats happened is we had a halloween party but i'll save that for the next instalment :) until then l8rs

Time flies....and so do the bee's..

Cannot believe i left this so long....loads to do obviously lol. Anyway not much to report on the hives, we did a thorough check on both hives last week before the cooler weather set in (not that we had any warm weather mind you) Hive 1 which had the dry swarms had definitely swarmed and our worry was that no uncapped brood was seen at all. Luckily we spotted uncapped and capped brood which lets us know there is definitely a queen on board :) 1 super has stores, the second has drawn wax and there are stores in the brood box as well, this hive all though not as busy should be ok for the coming months. The bee's in this hive are quieter than hive 2 and a lot lighter in colour so definitely buckfast strain.
Hive 2 is very different to hive 1, very busy, lots of stores (though not as much as hive 1) a lot more aggressive and a lot darker in colour which will be interesting in how they compare to the other hive for next year. No queen cells but still a few drones in both hives so they have not been kicked out quite yet lol. I reckon i will get 1 or 2 hive checks done over next few weeks depending on weather then that will be it until march. Not sure on winter checking i will need to read up but obviously i will keep the sugar syrup going so they don't starve.

Oh well....

We had a busy weekend this bank holiday what with family and friends over so it took longer than i had hoped to check the hives. As the last time we had seen any activity with the hives was on friday, nothing else was noticed to make us think anything was wrong. A friend and his partner had come to visit and steves partner Kym was very interested in the bee's so we lent her Kims suit so she could look at the hives with me. Hive 1 had drawn out supers some with stores but nothing capped, when we checked the brood box there was a lot of stores but also capped and uncapped brood as well as eggs. Though the hive was small it showed lots of activity with all the right signs of being ok for the winter (though i will have to keep feeding them as well).
Hive 2 which was the hive that had the dry swarms was ok or so it seemed, capped and uncapped stores in the supers but when we got to the brood box it was just stores....no eggs and no brood...capped or uncapped this of course is a massive worry as it means that the queen has left the hive that either she left with some of the workers or we had another swarm that we missed. If there is another queen she was not seen as we wanted to check for  brood mainly, this obviously means we need to check to ensure the hive will be ok b4 the winter sets in.

and again...

They swarmed again on Friday....theres me painting (still..) when at 12:33 i hear the bee's getting louder when i looked there at it again swarming above the hive, at 12:46 they all disappeared yet i still have flying bee's going in and out of the hive still so it looks as though we had another dry swarm again? may have to ring one of our mentors to find out whats going on, will check  on the hives Sunday to see how every thing is and let you know whats going on then :)

I think i have a headache.....

This bee's ness with the bee's (grin) is getting confusing lol...well since the last inspection of the hives i have been pottering around the garden, we still have a wasp problem so i decided to empty and refill some of the wasp traps when i got to one of them i saw two of the bigest wasps i have ever seen. 'Are they hornets' says Kim 'naa' says me. They were both alive so i decided to put them in a sealed container then take their picture in the morning once they had died to show how big they were. Well when i opened the container the next morning 2 enormous and very angry hornets (yes they were hornets) shot out and flew around the garden dive bombing me into the bargain b4 flying off, i didn't get any pictures but the traps are still up so who knows :) We checked the hive with the queen cells in on monday evening and by the 4th frame i suddenly saw a queen (not marked) shoot down to the bottom of the frame, luckily Kim saw it as well which showed that the queen from the queen cell i had put back was definetly alive.....after checking the rest of the frames definetly no other queen but 3 queen cells found which i destroyed. We put syrup feeders in and closed the hive back up it looked as though a new queen was taking up residence.
Then today happened :) just before i went to pick Kim up from work there was a lot of activity around the hives....and i mean a lot of activity lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR1ywS1y5sE i have given up trying to put video clips on here so you guys can see this on youtube from now on.

Well as you can see the hive has swarmed and disappeared off....except when i checked the hive tonight theres still the same amount of bee's present as there was yesterday??? so have they all come back? it may be a dry swarm meaning they all swarmed expecting a queen to come with them but she didn't, it could be a practise which i doubt...so as you can imagine its very confusing whats going on in this hive....i quickly checked hive no.1 and they seem to be ok, theres capped and uncapped brood but not much...lots of stores though so i put a super on to see if that will help oh and i did find a queen cell (grrr) which i got rid of and thats where we are at the moment. So i will keep an eye on them tomorrow to see if they swarm again though this recent swarm only took around 15 mins so i may miss them...at least i got it on video lol anyway until the next time l8rs :)

Never runs smoothly lol

Well it just goes to show if you dont keep on top of things, something is bound to happen.....last weekend we checked both hives and everything seemed to be ok plenty of activity in both hives though number one hive still not producing lots of stores to warrent a super yet so i am still feeding them a sugar solution to kick start them off. Hive number 2 has had no problems in fact the super we put on has slowly filled with honey and lots of the frames are starting to be capped, we therefore put a second super on but as of yesterday there was no sign of drawn comb yet. At the back of my mind i was aware that we had not checked hive two for over a week and also i noted that the front of the hive was not as busy as usual. Then when we checked we found over half a dozen capped queen cells......not a good sign usually means the hive is about to swarm, we demolished some of the cells but kim said leave the others as we still had not come across the queen yet....in fact we checked all the frames twice and still no sign of her. Kim wanted the last cople of queen cells left and i brought 2 whole ones indoors to photo.....except one of the cells was moving in my hand and buzzing lol....we could see that a queen was starting to break out of her cell!! I rang one of our mentors who said we could put her back in the hive or destroy her...kim wanted her put back, which i did as she had already taken the cap off by that time.
We obviously have a problem here because a number of scenarios put themselves foward
1. The old queen has died somehow and new queens have been made to compensate
2. The hive has already swarmed and the old queen has gone
3. We missed the old queen, she is still there and may kill the other queens
4. The hive is going to swarm again......
Reading up, its not unusual for hives to swarm in august due to weather and nectar flow....which judging by the weather the last few weeks may explain why the hive is doing this, i am upset as she is a young queen so should have no reason to do this plus we got her for the low tendancy to swarm....but she is a woman and you cannot always know what there thinking (boy am i going to get a clout for that comment lol) a possible awnser would be to do an artificial swarm but we dont have the equipment or experience for that. Until i can get my head around this and until we check the hive on saturday we may just have to let the bee's get on with it :( i have ordered some more feeders to see if that helps. The books say that one way to stop this happening is to provide an artificial swarm which means minipulating the hive to seperate itself without flying off. In the book it seems simple but i need to make sure the old queen is still alive first and as i said we need spare equipment as well. I may need to ring one of our mentors first and see what they suggest. Anyway enough of our dilema until the weekend i will talk to all later :)

Still no video clips but.....

More pictures!! :)
well its been a week since our last visit to the hives hive 1 still very busy and hive 2...well...its ok :) went down and checked on them around 6:45 Opened hive 2 first...all sugar syrup finished so made another batch up and put that aside ready for them. The first thing we noticed was that there is still not much production going on where the brood box is concerned, there is brood evident but also lots of stores

the next picture does not really show it that well (even though i took a few pictures) was when we saw a bee breaking out of its cell...1st the bee made  a tiny hole which got bigger and bigger as she chewed the cap before she pulled herself through (left hand top 4 down 7 across...under a bee)

the next picture shows lots of stores and honey

finally we came across some uncapped brood (top right)

we found 1 queen cell which we got rid of then i saw this on the right hand side of the another frame its whats called a queen cup (looks like an acorn cup) its the bee's practising but we will keep an eye on it for next week incase they take it further

Kim was like a whippet after a rabbit with the next hive as she had already opened it and was checking the supers before i had even got the roof on the 1st hive lol

the good thing though is that already over half the frames have been filled with honey...so my job tomorrow evening is to put a second super on for the bee's to start working on :) The next picture sows a frame with lots of capped brood on...

The last picture shows a mix of brrood and stores but also the odd drone cell dotted about...you cant miss them as they have slightly raised white caps..

we didn't go through all the frames ,so did not look for the queen as it was fairly obvious they are both prodcing brood , monday i will put a second super into hive 1 and i will also check the bottom trays for mite....which i will explain about on the next blog :) so again thanks for reading and until the next time l8rs