One of our first drone bees of the year can be seen here:
Here's a close-up of him. He's massively larger than the worker bees and has much larger eyes and wings.
We're still unable to spot the queen but the pattern of egg-laying's ideal so we're not really worried about her.
The sheer quantity of bees to search through is making it seem like a completely impossible task to find her. I think we're going to have to just spend a whole day going through the hive again and again until we do find her! I wouldn't be at all bothered about finding her but I would like to have her clearly marked before attempting the artificial swarm - I don't want to have to spend hours searching for her on that day as well as everything else! That's not going to happen for a few weeks yet though as the swarming season doesn't even begin normally until May and runs through June and July too.
We're looking forward to splitting this colony - it's great to see such a strong and healthy one but the quantity of bees in there right now is just staggering! Also, we did the inspection in full sunshine today so a large portion of the colony wasn't even here but out busy foraging. It must be crammed to the rafters at night!
