Bernie’s Bees

11/05/2025

So much activity in warm weather creates a lot of congestion and accidents at the hive entrance.

21/05/2024

Collected another swarm on - a big one!
Managed to get the Queen quite early on (complete fluke) and so all her Daughters marched in after her.
The following day moved them to a bigger hive.

Honeybee swarm collection

16/05/2024

Caught my first swarm of the season a few weeks ago. 🐝

04/06/2023

So despite my best efforts, yellow hive swarmed a few days ago but luckily only to the underside of blue hive next door and I was there to witness it.
I’ve rehoused them in the nuc box as they clearly didn’t like where they were and now I’m not sure what to with them 🤣🐝
. I’ve now got 5 colonies and I always said I’d only ever have a max of 3 🤦🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️

11/05/2023

Bees do not like un-filled spaces, every gap needs to have a use..
I made an error by not filling the honey super with enough frames in yellow hive, so the bees filled the space themselves.

I put this comb to good use by cutting it away from the crown board, putting in an empty brood frame and donating to my new swarm hive.

You can see it has quite a bit of honey in it too.

06/05/2023

So having moved the swarm to my apiary, they stayed overnight in the nuc box. I’ve been up this morning and hived them properly and they seem to be happy enough in their new home.
Notice how one bee is calling the rest of the stragglers by raising its bum, letting off a pheromone and fanning it away to get their attention.

05/05/2023

Went to check on the girls earlier today and stumbled across this swarm, right near my apiary.. so now I have 3 colonies.. finders keepers right?

01/05/2023

The girls of blue hive exploring their wider entrance. 🐝☀️

01/05/2023

Inspected Yellow hive a couple of weeks ago while it was warm, these girls are by far the strongest colony (my second from a swarm) and were already outgrowing the space, so I added another super.