Roasting!

Today was forecast to be the hottest day of the current heatwave, with temperatures expected to be in the low to mid 30's.

We were up early and shut the curtains on the side of the house that gets the sun.  The living room is naturally quite cool, and we hoped that keeping the room in shade, would make it a reasonably pleasant sanctuary in the heat of the day.

We then headed out to the garden and ensured that the young plants were watered. 

Having sorted the house and garden, we retreated indoors and looked for something to occupy our time away from the heat of the day. 30% headed upstairs for an extended period of tidying. I wandered in to the utility room and made a start on a long overdue task; descaling the coffee maker. 

This little job always takes much longer than expected and I was still faffing around with the filter as 30% declared it was time for lunch.

In the afternoon 30% headed out to enjoy the air-conditioned delights of the supermarket, while I pulled on my bee suit for this week's inspection of the hives.

I only inspected hives #2 and #3 today. Hive #1 had a new queen introduced on Wednesday, and I can see little point in opening up that hive until next Monday.* The inspected hives are doing well. Hive #2 is the stronger colony and has about five frames of capped brood. Hive #3 is smaller with three frames of capped brood, but I have no concerns about either of them.

The colony inspections probably took about forty minutes, but I was sweltering by the time I had finished. I retreated to the shade and relative cool of the house and took a siesta for the rest of the afternoon.

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* With a queen introduction it is a case of "they will, or they won't", i.e. the colony will either accept her or kill her. I left the colony queenless for a couple of days, before I introduced the new queen, which should make them more amenable to accepting her, but fundamentally, the matter is out of my hands. If the queen is accepted by the colony, she will take a few days or even weeks to settle in and start to lay. Hence, there is no rush to open up the hive.