The awful weather hasn't let up at all this week - I wanted to open this last queenless nuc (N1) on Tuesday at the latest to remove the varroa bait frame but it just hasn't been possible. This is the first opportuntity I've had - I just hope all the brood hasn't hatched out already.
This will only take a couple of minutes - I just needed the tools shown in the photo above.
The frame in the centre is the one to be removed - the queen cells on it will definitely have hatched by now, I'm just hoping that the brood hasn't yet.
Unfortunately it's immediatly clear that the brood has hatched already, and so it has released any varroa mites which they were incubating. This is very frustrating and there's no point in removing this frame now.
This is where the queen cell had been - there's no sign of it now at all. There's no point wasting time looking for a hatched queen now, she'd only be a couple of days old anyway.
The other side of the frame is exactly the same - almost all of the brood is hatched already...
... and there's no sign of the queen cell where it had been just 4 days ago. I don't know if the fact that the queen cells have been torn down means anything at all. The frustration now is that, because all that brood from the bait combs has hatched, the varroa population has now been increased. Thankfully, there is no laying queen here yet and there can't be for a few days more, so it gives us time to insert another bait comb at the weekend and try again - hopefully we won't be so unlucky with the weather next time.
