Barns on 14th May and next visit 21st May
Guest: Norman Jarvis, Border Beekeepers: has been keeping bees since 1996; was hoping to find a spare queen cell to take away but none found! He would be delighted to return in a fortnight!
The hives are now all numbered, apart from the nuc that was created on 7th: a small QC was spotted in that, will need to be checked by 28th or 4th June to see that the queen is mated and laying.
All hives except 6 and 7 were checked.
1: Super added; and super with brood now underneath the brood box. Once brood has hatched, put this under 3’s brood box (see below)
2: No queen cells, queen seen, (re)marked & clipped. Brood box added ABOVE so bees can start drawing out foundation – this to be removed once some frames have been drawn out so that they can be used for nucs/swarms.
3: shallow frames in brood box with unstable comb beneath, suggest removing the super from underneath Hive 1 as soon as it’s empty of brood, and putting this super beneath the brood box, with the 2 shallow frames (removing unstable comb first) until the brood in the shallow frames has hatched. This colony is producing very irregular comb, clean up, add fresh frames and enough dummy boards (in store cupboard) to close all gaps.
4: had 2 queen cells and few bees – left, inspect on 21st or 4th June
5: empty
6: nuc created from this, it should be acting as normal.
7: nuc created by this by removing queen and frames – this needs to be checked by 28th or 4th June to see that the queen is mated and laying.
The paths and hives area has been neatly strimmed – thank you!
Runners for frames have been left in the store cupboard
AC took away one nuc box – a molehill had come up underneath it, the 3 frames inside were damp and mouldy, the interior was damp and had some soil in it; the exterior has been slightly strimmed on one corner. I’ll get some exterior filler and paint; clean the nuc box and fill it with fresh frames and foundation.
Taken away: Em MacKie took away one nuc box and one empty hive with frames, in preparation for splitting colonies at Kailzie.