Sunday 2nd May
Dreadful weather today - high winds, bitter cold and heavy rain too. It's an urgent job to create the artificial swarm because as soon as the first of those queen cells we saw on Saturday is sealed over, it gives the green light for the current queen to take every flying bee in the colony (along with all the honey they can carry) and swarm away to set up a new colony somewhere else.
There's no possibility for us to open the colony in this weather, but there's also no possibility of the queen actually swarming when conditions are like this either, which is a consolation. However, she is now certain to swarm at the first available opportunity, so we are very grateful that I don't have to go to work on Bank Holiday Monday tomorrow and that the weather is forecast to be slightly better than it is today. We'll just have to get out there before she decides to make a break for it!...
