Just a few quick jobs to take care of today. Both these two nucs need to be checked - N1 needs a varroa bait frame removed and the colony in N2 is due to be rehomed this weekend, assuming that there are no health concerns inside.
N1 first. I have briefly opened this nuc a couple of times already this week - the bait frame has still had sealed worker brood (hopefully trapping every varroa mite in the colony inside it) as well as two sealed queen cells. I need to destroy this frame to eradicate the varroa but the queen seems to be taking much longer to hatch than I expected.
However, finally here she is - a newly-hatched virgin queen and practically all the worker brood is still sealed too.
She seems much slimmer and longer than our previous newly-hatched queens we have seen this year. These bees are all mongrels, not bred from pure stock, so it is not surprising that each queen would have a totally unique (and unpredictable) appearance and temperament.
Having carefully put the queen and all the other bees from this bait frame back into the nuc, we took it away to be destroyed. It goes in the freezer for a spell - it's not easy to bring myself to destroy this quantity of healthy-looking brood but every varroa mite in the colony must be incubating here on this frame too, so it is necessary for the health of the colony.We sealed this colony back up with an empty frame to replace this one. This queen will need a fortnight to mate and then start raising her own brood.
N2 next - we fed this colony a litre of sugar syrup a few days ago to help them build up those two empty frames from the final step of this colony's bait frame treatment. They have taken it all in from the feeder and started building up that wax foundation.
This is now looking like a very healthy colony, and definitely suitable for rehoming with another beekeeper.
'Blue 2', we called this queen, not wanting to become attached to her! This colony is due to be collected on Sunday morning so I'll come back out later this evening to seal them all in for the journey. (It's only 10 miles away, which is a good thing, seeing as we are in the middle of a small heat wave here - sealing them in for a few hours could be fatal for them in extreme heat like this.)
These are our three permanent colonies - we need to remove some more bait comb from Beatrix's and to check that Dipsy has enough room for expansion. It has been clear that Dipsy's colony is by far the strongest of the lot - the number of bees in that colony is probably about the same as in the other two combined.
Beatrix first - we inserted a shallow frame into the brood box a while ago. When this happens, the bees usually build up a whole load of drone cell comb on the bottom of it. Varroa mites usually find the scent of unsealed drone brood irresistable and will always choose to breed in drone brood if it is available.
Sure enough, the whole bottom of the frame has been built up and has a large quantity of sealed drone brood.
It was easy to slice this whole section off and replace the shallow frame in the hive. Hopefully they will build this up again and we can continually slice off large sections of drone brood regularly without having to sacrifice any of the valuable worker brood.
Dipsy next - it's clear that this is a much more defensive colony than any of the others here. Right from the first moment of opening the roof, the guard bees were just constantly battering at us.
There is still plenty of room in the super, though there are not many completely empty frames left.
There isn't much room in the brood box so it looks like this one may need supering up again soon, just because of the sheer quantity of bees in here - it must be pretty cramped at night!
N2 next - we fed this colony a litre of sugar syrup a few days ago to help them build up those two empty frames from the final step of this colony's bait frame treatment. They have taken it all in from the feeder and started building up that wax foundation.
This is now looking like a very healthy colony, and definitely suitable for rehoming with another beekeeper.
'Blue 2', we called this queen, not wanting to become attached to her! This colony is due to be collected on Sunday morning so I'll come back out later this evening to seal them all in for the journey. (It's only 10 miles away, which is a good thing, seeing as we are in the middle of a small heat wave here - sealing them in for a few hours could be fatal for them in extreme heat like this.)
These are our three permanent colonies - we need to remove some more bait comb from Beatrix's and to check that Dipsy has enough room for expansion. It has been clear that Dipsy's colony is by far the strongest of the lot - the number of bees in that colony is probably about the same as in the other two combined.
Beatrix first - we inserted a shallow frame into the brood box a while ago. When this happens, the bees usually build up a whole load of drone cell comb on the bottom of it. Varroa mites usually find the scent of unsealed drone brood irresistable and will always choose to breed in drone brood if it is available.
Sure enough, the whole bottom of the frame has been built up and has a large quantity of sealed drone brood.
It was easy to slice this whole section off and replace the shallow frame in the hive. Hopefully they will build this up again and we can continually slice off large sections of drone brood regularly without having to sacrifice any of the valuable worker brood.
Dipsy next - it's clear that this is a much more defensive colony than any of the others here. Right from the first moment of opening the roof, the guard bees were just constantly battering at us.
There is still plenty of room in the super, though there are not many completely empty frames left.
There isn't much room in the brood box so it looks like this one may need supering up again soon, just because of the sheer quantity of bees in here - it must be pretty cramped at night!A good video of Dipsy scuttling about. She is clearly marked but you can see how the queen moves 'differently' to the other bees.
