I have been away for 3 weeks and got home in the early hours last night. I have 16 full colonies, 10 nucs and 32 apideas to check. The big worry is possible swarm loss but all the queens in the full colonies are clipped. I just checked 3 nucs and 4 apideas I have in the garden and saw the queens. Two of these nucs has new queens taken from apideas introduced via a cage just a day or two before I left. Both had good brood patterns and one had brood ...
Had a visit from a Scottish Government inspector and an inspectress yesterday. As a result I have an insert in the floor of one hive to take out next Wednesday and send to the lab, one hive now short of 60-100 flying bees, and I was able to sit and watch while the brood frames of all of my main hives were shaken free of bees and given a thorough going-over. All in the name of science, and performed professionally. I'm all in favour of that. Nothing much to report from the visual ...
Finally I have my first Warré hive, complete with 4 boxes (best to be optimistic).In the end I decided to go with top bars rather than frames, but that can be changed over later.It was made for me by Frank down the road who is very skilled with wood and only charged 2 rabbits. I've been rubbing it all over the inside with wax and propolis and the entrance with a lemon smelling plant- verveine citronnelle. I think it's too late to catch a decent swarm this year, but my wife says that it looks nice, ...
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