GW,

There was a lot of activity at the entrance of GW's hive and after the chaos created by pulling it apart the other day I thought I would give it another look. The queen marked green (she should be marked red) was there in the top brood box on the second frame in. I made a quick inspection for queen cells and put the hive back together. There was still some unhatched brood in the big old wooden feeder box and I released quite a few drones that had emerged from brood in the feeder box that is above the queen excluder. I need to put on another super.

I was going to take the queen and the brood out of the Wynmondham swarm and give them one of my queen cells to hatch out. The bees were ahead of me and had already made their own queen cell. I still removed the queen and a couple of frames of brood. But I did leave them with their own queen cell to look after.

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.

Robbers

I lost a small nuc today. The box had been robbed out by invaders. As the recent good weather has changed and the nectar flow eased the robbing has begun. The colony was too small to defend it's self and all of it's stores have now been removed. I noticed a lot of activity at the box entrance and that gave me cause to look inside. It is a sign that I need to start thinking about feeding all of the colonies both large and small.

GW, Mount Pleasant swarm, North Walsham swarm

At last I found GW in the top brood box and marked her and immediately lost her again as she squeezed through the queen marking cage as my back was turned. I took her hive apart and pulled the twigs and brood frame apart. The brood frames in the two supers had to have the extra brood cut of the bottoms before they would fit into a regular brood box. The hive is now on a new floor with a double brood box, a super and above that a large old box feeder filled with the spare brood comb. Wether or not the bees will look after this brood remains to be seen as does a green winged queen. She should be red of course.

The mount pleasant swarm has good looking striped queen. Now marked green.

The North Walsham swarm has been building up well and the queen is laying plenty of eggs right now. But there is too much chalk brood in the hive for my liking. There was less on the new drawn out frames but then they have have less time for it to develope. The queen is small and black (and now marked green) and I took her and several frames of brood out of that brood box and put them in a nuc box to go to Old Costessy. In a few days time I will also take out any queen cells. I am going to put a queen cell from Luke's german queen in there. The queen cells are building up in Norman's hive where the queen swarmed. I removed Norman's bees queen cells a few days ago and put in a frame of eggs from Luke's Carniolan queen. A first cross could prove to be a disaster but we will see.

Tina, Hive on bricks, Willow's hive

I moved Tina out of her bee brief and back into a regular brood box today. I don't know how much more egg laying she can achieve but there were two good frames of sealed brood with her today.

At last! The hive on bricks has a laying queen and judging by the propolis she is an offspring of Sticky. I thought my attempts to add queen cells had failed.

I opened Willow's hive for an inspection today. The bees seemed much happier and were making honey again. But on the first frame of the brood box there was a queen cell. It was however the only one and it seemed to be on a frame isolated from the main brood colony where there were plenty of eggs. There were queen cups but they didn't have eggs in them. I didn't see the queen but it seems that she has been accepted by the bees now and the swarming impulse has waned.