Recent content by Mellish

Only two? It could be supercedure. Let the hive sort it out!

Cheers people. I think it will survive - it's just the size of a nuc again.

National hive - but no choice on numbers as it is my only hive. Reading some of the other threads, it seems I'm not the only one to have hive death over winter. Ouch.

No brood. I didn't have my glasses so didn't check for eggs. The winter cluster was 3 brood frames, both sides. Today there was about half a brood frame, though no doubt quite a number were out flying. Even so, the hive is vastly reduced from last summer. Sterile queen is a maybe?

Hi, My single hive has decreased in size over winter, to the size of nuc colony. There have been a lot of dead bees everywhere, and a lot on the floor. There is a lot of stores, and I fed them with a litre of syrup a month ago, so I don't think they're starving. The queen seems healthy, but I...

As far as I can tell, there's one QC (pictured) with white inside. There's one with a bee's head sticking out (not sure what that is), and a third (pictured) that seems to have a bee feeding something inside. There's two other small cups which as far as I can don't have anything inside them...

Had a look again today - the girls weren't too happy two days in a row. But the QC people spotted was in fact a queen cup - but it does look like there's something white in it. The other queen cup pictures with arrows look like a queen or drone in a neighbouring cell being held back - what do...

I'll take an even closer look at it next time. If it is a QC - and the new queen arrives - rather than kill the virgin, maybe I'll put the frame and some stores in a nuc and see if it will start a new colony. (Though I don't think it is a QC as close up it looks to be drawn down comb rather than...

I don't think it is a QC in the last photo as there are a number of bridge bubbles that made me also think they were QC's but on closer inspection proved too thin. As far as I can see there is no capped brood, only capped honey. I couldn't see any virgin queens or QCs that have been opening -...

Hi - could someone experienced take a look at these photos of my new hive? These are frames from the centre of the brood. The bees a loading in lots of honey into the brood frames. I can't see any uncapped brood or eggs, and while there's some queen cups, they're empty and no sign of an...