My plan was to inspect the bees and mow the lawn and I really wanted to leave these until the weather warmed up. Ideally it should be above 15 degrees centigrade to open up a hive and I always prefer to mow a dry sward.
This meant that I had the early morning to finalise volume five of the Journal, upload it to the Blurb website and place an order for a single copy. The Gods appeared to have smiled down at me today, as I tracked down a 25% discount code just before committing to purchase and a good amount was deducted as I checked out.
I then headed down to Kathy H-R's cottage and checked on the two hives. One was doing reasonably well and the other was absolutely booming. The very prolific colony was rammed with bees and had nearly filled it's super with nectar. A second super was added to give the bees some space and, hopefully, reduce their urge to swarm. Surprisingly I was also rewarded with a glimpse of each of the two Queens* as I worked my way through the hives
Back at home lunch was taken and then I wandered out to inspect the four hives in the garden. The first was fine and required little work, other than a clean up of some brace comb and the squashing of a few queen cups.
I then moved on to the second hive and was gobsmacked by the difference. It was very busy and had laid down significant quantities of nectar in the super. As I started to inspect the brood box it was apparent that this colony was going to swarm as there were a number of queen cells developing. I needed to respond immediately, so a Nucleus Box was fetched and I started to search for the queen.
My plan was to create a shook swarm. ** This management technique should create two colonies rather than letting nature take its course and watching the original queen and half the colony bugger off in to the wide blue yonder with little chance of catching them.
I eventually located the queen and placed her in a small nucleus hive with a couple of frames of brood, a couple of frames of stores and shook a frame of bees in to keep her company. The shook swarm was sealed up and then TP and I took it down the road and sited it in Kathy's garden.
This left two more hives to inspect. One was doing well and second super was added to create room for the bees. The second was fine, but needed nothing more than a standard inspection.
Its early in the year for swarming behaviour and the swarming season lasts through until July. That means three months of preventative management. I may need to consider brood reduction to keep them in check.
After the fun and games with the bees, I was ready for a kip, but I fulfilled my promise and the lawn was shorn first.
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* They can be challenging to spot, especially in a large colony and, as an alternative, I often resort to checking for eggs or young larvae to confirm that the colony has an active, laying queen.** A shook swarm is a management method where the beekeeper removes the queen and four or five frames of stores and brood. These are all placed in a nucleus hive and a few thousand bees are shaken in from the original hive.
The nucleus hive with the shook swarm is then sealed and relocated a few miles away. At its new location it is opened up and the colony is provided with a feeder filled with syrup to sustain them.
In due course the nucleus will be transferred to a full size hive as the number of bees increase.
The original colony is closed up and left well alone for about a month. Hopefully the queen cells will hatch and the young queen will have a successful mating flight, returning to start laying and thereby creating a new colony.
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