GW's hive consisted of three brood boxes before I split it up today with GW in the bottom box under the queen excluder.
The top box has had three buckets of sugar syrup stored in frames (frames that had been left spare that needed cleaning up). Those frames of stores are now split up and in several other boxes that have small nucs with 2009 queens.
I put the middle box on a new floor and I will put the top box back on above it (with empty frames) with a sheet of newspaper between the two. Tomorrow I plan to put a small nuc of four frames with a new queen in it in that top box. My intention is to boost the number of bees looking after that queen and once they are united I will feed them up and maybe be able to do a similar split again for another small colony.
The original floor and bottom brood box with the swarm queen is now in Postwick and needs more feeding. This time last year they were still in comb amongst the twigs in the car park shrubbery. Back link
GW's bees are the only 'feral' bees I have collected living outside like that.
THIS TIME LAST YEAR
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