We checked over the hives today, after re queening 4 hives last week, we thought we would have had a positive response but like the book says it is very difficult to re queen native Bee's they don't like accepting just any queen.
3 out of 4 hives had got rid!! and at £30 each its not very funny. One colony accepted and has already started laying her eggs so that one will be fine.
Now the other 3, well 2 of them had drawn emergency queen cells so we have left them with them and will allow them to hatch, but what we will do is relocate the hive to Llanrwst to give them a better chance of mating and they will be close to the honey flow that is just starting to happen there.
The blackberry and balsam is just coming into flower and both hives have a strong colony of workers so should bring in the honey.
The 3rd hive is a disaster, they had no brood so are slowly dying out, a lot less bees in there compared to last week. We have taken them out of the hive and moved it into the field which is going to be our new apiary, (more sun, less shade, protected from the wind) we replaced the hive with a Nuc box and will try and save whats left with a queen and some brood out of one of the other hives.
The good news is that we have had 2 more swarms so we are now up to 10 hives (including the disaster) also the strong hives are definitely starting to find the nectar and pollen so we should get a bit of honey this year but as they say don't count your chickens...
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