George's bees, Thorpe bees, Greengage swarm

George's bees have united successfully with the new queen and one of the boxes had a new stripy laying queen that is now marked.

All three hives at Thorpe were queen right and the one under the hazel tree had a nearly full super on and an empty feeder bucket.

It was after seven in the evening and I was just checking that the nuc boxes had enough empty frames to keep them going for three weeks when I became aware of the buzzing all around me. The bees were swarming and it looked like they may settle in the greengage tree between Bill's greengage hive and my allotment 83 greengage hive. I looked around to see where they were coming from but I couldn't be sure. Only one of the nuc boxes at the end of the plot seemed a little excited. Maybe the queen had got back from her mating flight but didn't like the old home. They did settle in the greegage tree and it was easy to cut the twig on and pop them into another box. I stole a frame from the top brood box on Bill's Greengage hive that was half filled with fresh honey. Hopefully that will bribe them to stay. I saw the queen decend into the box but didn't try to mark her. (another striped queen)

Thymol

I put thymol crystals on two of my hives today. One was a Cherry's colony (one of the swarms I picked at the start of the season). They had made a fair amount of honey but I spotted a bee with virtually no wings and that is an indication that the mite levels are getting too high. I took off the suppers and have now extracted the capped honey. The thymol may put the queen off laying for a few weeks but the bees will all be much happier without so many mites.

The other was Bill's greengage hive.