Today we were able to split our one hive into two new hives. This is so that we can grow a new queen and have more bees in case we lose any more in the winter.

It should also help stop the hives from swarming this year and then we won’t lose honey production.

This is the original hive. This hive now has no queen as we stole her to put her in the new hive. This hive still has:

• almost all of the bees
• all of the honey they have made this year
• almost all of the baby bees, eggs and larva.
• no queen

This hive will now create it’s own queen. we will check back in a few days to see how they are getting on with this.

This is hive number 2. This hive has:

• the queen which we stole from hive number one
• one frame of pollen
• a couple of frames of honey for the bees to feed the babies on
• only young bees less than 3 weeks old because all the old bees fly back to the old hive.
• a feeder to feed them sugar syrup until the young bees start collecting their own nectar.

Check back in a week to see how hive 1 is getting on growing a new queen and how the queen in hive 2 is getting on starting a new colony.

Our bee hive is doing really well.

The queen has been laying lots of eggs and there are now thousands of bees in the hive.

The hot weather has also meant that they are making honey for us!

We are going to split the hive into 2 next week and grow a new queen. This is the perfect time of year to do this because there are drone (male bees) around.

We wanted to increase the number of drones in our hive, so we put in a shorter frame to the bottom box. This left a space which the bees filled with wax, but they built boy bee wax (the cells are bigger).

The queen has now laid eggs in this and in 24 days, they will hatch.

In this picture below, you can see the larva, which means it is between 4 and 9 days old. The bigger the larva, the older it is.

Check back next week to see how the splitting into two hives goes!

Today, Primary 6 went insect hunting with Mr McMullan to see if we could find some bees in the local area.

We found some amazing insects including a red tailed bumblebee and a really weird fly that looked like a wasp!

Identification tips

Here is a great website to help us identify the different types of bumblebee!

Check out some of the pictures and videos.

Over the past week, some primary 7 children have been learning how to perform beekeeping inspections.

There are different stages to an inspection

safety equipment

smoker

taking off the roof and crown board

lifting out each frame one by one to look for the queen and eggs. 

putting it all back together.

The children were very calm when around the bees and were extremely gentle which keeps the bees calm.

Our second bee hive is doing really well! The Queen has started laying lots and lots of eggs because the bees are bringing in bright yellow daffodil pollen which they feed to young bees.

In a few weeks, when the hive has grown nice and full, we will split it into two hives again!

Some good news!

Hive number 2, the one that has survived is looking reasonably healthy.

They don’t have much food left, so we have been feeding them until the weather gets better and there are more flowers around for the bees to get pollen and nectar from.

There were, however, some dead bees on the bottom of the hive floor and we have cleaned these out for them.

Bombee dreams has done a good job this year!

Today we did our first full inspection of the bee hives since the winter.

Unfortunately one of the hives has died due to starvation. The hive had fondant icing on the top for the bees to eat, however, this had unfortunately dried out so the bees couldn’t eat it easily.

This hive will now have to be cleaned out and stored inside so that we can reuse the wax and honey.

Our other hive is still alive, however, it is quite small.

It too was quite low on food and but still has a queen who has been laying eggs and building the hive up again after winter.

We are hopeful that this hive will continue to grow and we will be able to split it into two again to fill the other hive up.

RIP Beeyonce number 2.

Yesterday we had the first really warm day of spring and the bees have been out hunting for pollen in the area around the school.

At this time of year, there are very few flowers in bloom so there is not much for the bees to choose from except crocuses and daffodils.

At the front of the school there are some crocuses, which our bees haven’t been able to find yet, however, a big fat bumble bee was having a great time collecting pollen!

Great news! Both bee hives are still alive and well.

Some of the Primary 7s were out today checking how much food the bees had and if they needed more.

We feed them icing sugar in the winter so that they can keep moving and keep their hives warm.

Today we treated the bees for varroa mites using oxalic acid.

We we mixed the acid with sugar and water and then dribbled the solution onto the bees which were all clustered together in a ball.

The oxalic acid acid kills 99% of the varroa mites but not the bees.

Unfotunately some bees died in the snow and mr McMullan got stung on the ankle.

The bees are alive and well!

Today we also got a delivery of new beekeeping equipment from the TESCO bags of help money.

The delivery included children’s bee suits, new equipment and new polystyrene hives.

Keep your eyes peeled for more blogs in the next few days as we treat the hives for varroa mites.