Once we had breakfasted I spent the morning inspecting the hives and was quite amazed by the one that produced the shook swarm on 19th April. At this time of year the supers do not demand much attention and my main focus is on the activities of the queen and workers in the brood box. However, I always take a quick look at a couple of super frames, just to see how much nectar is being stored and converted to honey.
The uppermost super on this hive was crammed with stores and the bees had already capped off* more than half of the cells. This is very early, especially as there is very little oilseed rape growing nearby to support an early honey crop. I estimated the weight of honey as close to twenty pounds and can only hope that the other hives do anywhere near as well as this one.
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* The bees will seal each cell with a cap of fresh wax once the moisture level in the honey has dropped below 20%.
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Hi, I
have no idea who reads this stuff, so it's really nice to get some feedback from whoever your are.
All the best
Badman