Tina's girls, Laburnham

We marked some good looking new laying queens from the queen cells that Tina's bees produced when she was removed from the WBC hive in her town garden and taken to Old Costessy a month or so ago.

I also took one of her queen cells to Postwick that I gave to the the second compost bin swarm to hatch out. That was after I had taken their lively queen out of the brood box with a couple of frames bees and brood. I put those in a nuc box and sat it on top of the brood box. Tina's girls had been laying for some time with plenty of capped brood and that was the case in the brood box here too. But what I found in the nuc box above was not what I was expecting. I found queen cells. One hatched, one torn down and one about to hatch with the antenna of the yet to emerge queen twiching. On closer inspection a virgin queen was on the other frame and she looking like she was ready for a fight. Why the bees had decided to make these queen cells is a mystery. The last time I inspected she was there and seemed OK. I suppose it is possible that I damaged her in some way on closing the box. Anyway I took the frame with the emerging queen out of the nuc box and put it in another box. To give the bees and the new queen some chance of making a nucleous big enough to survive I stole a frame of brood from the Bowthorpe compost bin swarm that had some young bees about to hatch out and plenty young brood for them to look after. It will be five days before these new queens take their maiden flight so lets hope the weather is good for them then.

The Bowthorpe swarm has done quite well and more than half filled the brood box. But they have made no honey in the super. I marked their banded queen. I should have put the brood box down on the floor and moved the super under it it above the queen excluder. Maybe next time.

The Laburnham bees are no longer yellow. The bees that left the original hive with the queen were yellow and the queen is yellow but her bees are much darker and are not as 'laid back' as the yellow bees. Hower, they are making honey and they look like they are good hard working 'mongrel' bees.

Last year's (Hellsden) Postwick swarm (I only took one swarm to Postwick last year) has two brood boxes and five supers on. That is after I put another one on today. I have liked the way these bees has steadily grown from a relativly small swarm to what is now a big hive. They have always had an independant air about them. They ignored the fondant until quite late in the season. It was almost as though it was beneath them to consume something that they hadn't stored for themselfs.