As with all hobbies, there is so much to learn and with beekeeping I am learning all the time.This weekend I have been reading the Beekeepers Bible by Collins.
There is everything in it that a novice beekeeper could possibly need, from the history of the bee to basic skills and honey recipes.
Well worth the cost!
Saturday afternoon, time once again to inspect the hives, we were only going to check numbers 1-5 today as we were a little worried about the activity in numbers 2 and 4 and of course we needed to know what was happening in number 1.
We opened hive #1 first, I am so glad to say it is now queen right, laying queen, brood found at all stages, this has now been saved and looking good.
Hive # 2 we had our doubts last week when we opened this, if there was a queen or not. This hive is working extremely well, bringing in the honey, but there was no new eggs or brood seen.
Gary checked it over and explained that the behaviour of the bees, led him to believe it was queen less. As they have no eggs, they cannot produce a queen cell, so we had to take evasive action.
We removed a frame of brood from # 5 and placed this in this hive. Now we have to check this in 2-3 days, there will be either queen cells produced on this frame proving there is no queen or if there are no cells it will be queen right and we will just have to wait for her to lay.
Hive # 3 we checked this to see if it needed another super for honey, plenty coming in so it will do in a few days time, Mel better get making some more frames quickly!
Hive # 4 this was another concern, as we thought this was were # 12 swarm had come from and again we weren't sure if it was queen less or not. We followed the same procedure as above, taking a frame of brood this time from hive #3 . We will need to check again in 2-3 days to see what has happened. Again this activity has not effected the honey flow so we are hoping for some lovely nectar soon.
Hive #5 is queen right with a bought queen from the Buckfast strain and she is laying very well. This hive is getting stronger by the day, but we have had to take a frame of brood out to save hive #2. We are sure they will recover from this loss very quickly. We are not expecting any honey from this hive this year, we just need it to build up strong enough to get through the winter.
The weather today is atrocious not even a bee would go out in this!! bring back the Sun
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