Transfer of Bees from Nuc to Hive

Well today's Job was pretty straight forward, but it is getting a bit of a headache trying to remember which hive is which, so we have had to go around and physically number each hive.
I wanted to name them as I thought it would be lovely "Primrose Hive" has a nice sound to it, dont you think? but for simplicity sake I know its more sensible to just number them so I gave in.

It is extremely important to keep hive records especially when you have more than 2 hives, I am disciplined enough to do that and since being involved with all aspects of beekeeping I set up my own log book. There are unfortunately no records from last year, say no more..

So for record keeping sake only, I have named them as well numbering, hopefully you can then follow a little easier what I am doing in the future.

Number 1 ( Dahlia) hive is the problem Nuc which is queen less
Number 2 ( Dandelion) hive is the one which we saw the queen emerge from this week
Number 3 (Lavender) hive is the one with the honey flow and going well
Number 4 (Primrose) is my hive also with a new emerged queen this week
Number 5 (Daisy) is from an artificial swarm out of number 2 hive

All above hives are in one apiary on the mountain

Number 6  (Poppy) hive is the swarm caught in Deganwy today transferred from a Nuc box into a full hive and on 5 full frames with room to expand
Number 7 (Geranium) hive is a swarm caught in Llanbedr this hive was transferred from a full hive into a Nuc box only on 3 frames and we needed the hive for hive # 6
Number 8 (Buttercup) hive is from an artificial swarm from hive #4 and was also transferred from a Nuc into a full hive to give them more room as this was struggling for space
Number 9 (Honeysuckle) hive is from a swarm caught in Mochdre
Number 10 (Cowslip) hive is from a swarm caught in Llanrwst
Number 11 (Cosmos) hive is from a swarm caught in Llanbedr again, this week

All the above hives are in the apiary in the field

Now I can get on with some housework which has been a little neglected because of the bees!!

Hive Number 11 another swarm

Yes that's right Hive number 11 another swarm caught tonight in Conwy,

This time it was in a swarm box so very easy to collect and to handle. The box had been placed in a dark corner of a garden by a friend of ours Cyril. He phoned us up today to say that there was a lot of activity around it, so after dinner we set out to collect it, taking with us a gift of a jar of Melys Honey as a

 thank you.

Back home we were lucky to be able to hive it straight into a brand new hive that Mel had spent all last night putting together, just in case! Lucky for the bees he had, guess what he will be doing

 tomorrow night!!

All the bees were tucked up nicely in their new home before dark.