Eggs hurrah!

Suzanne and I went through the hives last friday and in Connie hive we found the queen on the crown board but the brood box full of honey stores.  Action -to make up a super and put it on this hive as soon as possible.

In Beatrice hive we found eggs although this is a very small nucleus sized colony.

In Adele hive we found bees and honey but no eggs and no queen.  Action we took a frame of eggs from Beatrice and placed it in Adele.  Felt terrible though since Beatrice is now such a small colony.

Next day put a super and queen excluder on Connie hive.

Yesterday I quickly looked in Adele hive - I wanted to check if a queen cell had been made on the frame of eggs we had put in there.  It hadnt although bees had made a few queen cups.  But there were eggs on more than one frame so there must have been a queen in there after all.  Action to take a frame of brood to put in Beatrice hive to replace eggs that were removed.  More than one if it can be spared.

More Honey!

Another 7 frames of honey off Adele hive today. I left them two frames which hadn't ripened yet and there was plenty of stores in the brood box last time we looked.  Now we just have to extract it.

Honey!

Today I decided to check on the Supers to see how much honey was there.   The oilseed rape has been in flower a good week - 10 days and this honey has to be harvested early since is crystallises very quickly and is hard to extract. 

The bees find it hard to eat in the winter since it sets very hard and they struggle to liquidise it in the cold.

So took off 8 frames of honey off Beatrice hive and one frame of Adele hive before I ran out of replacement frames - so came back in the house and made up more frames and another super so I can collect more tomorrow.

Swarm pictures

First Swarm

Giles in action

Smaller Swarm found by Giles

Left over night and by next day both add joined together under the plastic box.

Not so ungrateful after all.

Apparently the bees in Lichfield didn't leave but are going about their business as usual in their new home.

This is not good.

L sent me this on Monday the day before they left for good.

Ungrateful girls

So one swarm (a caste I think) went to a lady in Fen End. The second caste swarm (Swarm with a virgin queen)went home to Lichfield but they didn't like the accommodation. On Monday that were on the outside of the hive but some honey and syrup persuaded them back in but not for long. On Tuesday L text me

"Bees have left me with a cold and lonely hive :( Went out at 7pm last night, all
well, this morning, all gone.