Thorpe, Permaculture, Old Costessy

I started by looking in the middle hive in Thorpe - just the briefest of looks to see if there were still bees there. There were but there is no point disturbing them further, they will either multiply and survive or dwindle and die out.

Next I checked out the old Thorpe queen. Not so good. She was there and laying eggs but the colony is not strong. I sorted out the brood boxes by reducing two to one and I gave it a liberal sprinkling of Thymol crystals on the lugs before putting back the queen excluder and super.

After seeing that old queen struggling I thought I should check out some of the others. The old UEA swarm 2007 queen on the students permaculture allotment was doing extremely well and had completed drawing out and finished laying in the drone brood I put in last week. I put another super on.

I checked her double brood box daughter and found and marked the queen they had also drawn out and completed laying in the drone brood.

Next I open Tina's hive and took out 'Tina' and marked her yellow again as her mark had worn off. I took her as a nuc to Old Costessy leaving two brood boxes and a super on the hive. That hive also has a frame of drone brood in it.

In Old Costessy the bees were busy at the entrance to hive on bricks and the two nuc boxes above it. I imagine there are virgin queens in all of them now. If the weather forecast is correct they could well get a chance to mate next Monday/Tuesday.

I took out and marked the queen in Norman's number one Old cosstessy hive making up a large nuc in a new brood box. (now in the allotment)

I checked that 'Sticky' was still in her new brood box. She is easy to see now with her new yellow marking and was in place.

I wanted to put a frame of drone brood in Norman's number two Old Costessy hive. In front of the hive was a crown board and when I lifted it a small cluster of dead bees. Inside the hive were queen cells. I checked the cluster to see if there was a dead queen but couldn't see one. I took one of the frames with two queen cells out of the hive brushed off the bees and reduced the queen cells to one then I put it into the hive I had just removed the queen from. I will need to go back with another nuc box to separate the other queen cells soon as I imagine I lost the queen the day they were moved - last friday - a week ago.

I put a frame of drone brood in Norman's number 3 Old Costessy hive

Picked up two new hives from Bill who advised leaving his mesh accross the entrance until tomorrow so that they don't leave the hive and I don't loose another queen - (I was explaining the scene I found at Old Costessy and he said if they leave in the evening they can get chilled and not get back OK)