Sat 7th September

We had a good visit to the association apiary. A few regulars and some welcome guests turned up including some junior bee enthusiasts. Scroll down for the photos.

Thanks to Janet for the notes.

Inspection Notes from Apiary visit 7th September 2019

Hive 4

• Queen not seen.
• Brood box – three frames with small amount of sealed brood.
• Lots of bees.
• One super with lots of sealed honey, another super with a smaller amount of sealed and unsealed honey.

Action taken:

• Super with smaller amount of honey moved to below the brood box.
• Clearing board put in between brood box and super with sealed honey (super above brood box).
• Queen excluder removed.

Next visit:

• Take top super off.
• Feed with syrup.

Hive 2

Queen, eggs and brood seen.

Actions taken:

• Frames with sealed honey moved to the sides, and unsealed frames moved towards middle.

Hive 3

Two supers, both partially filled. Third, empty super on top to accommodate fondant feed.

Actions taken:

• Fondant feed (almost all gone) removed.
• Best frames from both supers transferred to one super. This was left above brood box with excluder removed and replaced with a clearing board.
• Less filled frames put in the other super which was then placed under the brood box.
• The empty spare super (from the fondant feed) left on top of the clearing board).

Hive 5

No super. Queen seen. Some sealed brood – no eggs or unsealed brood. Frames very full of stores.

Nuc 3

Queen seen – still laying.

Actions taken:

• Syrup added.

Black Queen Nuc

Lots of sealed brood, larvae and eggs. Queen seen.

Action taken:

• Reservoir at the side of the nuc filled with syrup and stick added for bees to climb on.

Update Sun 8th

Richard and Peter removed the cleared supers from Hives 3 and 4 and replaced with feeders in an empty super as eke. Feeders were filled with syrup.

Here are some photos from Wilma showing some the action from this seasons attempts at raising native dark queens from the associations native bee stock. The hard work here has mainly been done by Wilma, Linda and David.

These were taken when they were moving the black amm queen that was mated at Kate Atchleys apiary from an apidea into a  nuc box.