It’s been a fortnight since my last hive inspections and the successful course I gave in June.
During my last course this is what my course participents said
" Would recommend the course to others " "It was worth more than £30"
"What a Fantastic Day " " I learned so much"
With such great feedback from the attendee’s, why not sign up for my next course in August?
The weather over the last few last days has been mixed after a lovely few days
Many of my bee’s do not wish to leave their hives on occassion. They have been left to it ( work ) but I did a quick check of a couple of hives this morning to see why things were so quiet. In the hive that had been split a fortnight ago, all the bee’s only around 300 were clustered. They had no Queen, neither were there any signs of cell activity. They had been moved into a new hive, without any drawn comb, so since the time were introduced to their new home, they had to be busy building comb. This is hard work for a new colony without a queen.
They have to find food, survive and learn everything without a queen. Having discovered only one frame having significant comb progress, I decided to give this new young colony a feeder with fondant to help them out.
A virgin Queen has to be mated before introducing them to a new hive. Rearing a Queen from scratch takes two months and the colony simply doesn’t have two months, they wont surive that long without a new Queen to breed and build the brood. So today I have ordered a new Queen, she will arrive within 48 hours and be introduced to the only Queen less brood, due to natural expansion, without breeding swarming activity which has been managed carefully. A new Queen was ordered and introduced to this queenless colony as I needed to save time last week and get the colony productive.
This is how healthy my bee's are!
This colony, when up to strength will be given to one of my new beekeepers, but they have to have covered at least 4 frames to make themselves a viable colony that will expand and survive winter. Today the bee’s were all huddled together in one corner of the hive indicating they were keeping warm and a sign that they didn’t want to forage for whatever reason – I put it down to the weather.
I collected a swarm in Market Harborough and introduced them to a new hive yesterday.
I've produced my eighth beehive now, several have been sold. I am taking orders, so grab a hive before the end of the season, its a little late but we still have 3 good months of bee activity left this year.