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🙄 Once they’re over swarm fever I’ll probably unite them. The swarm is squeezed into a nuc but that won’t last long….

I always keep cocktail sticks in my hive box.

Guess what? The hive with the supposedly AWOL queen swarmed today - flopped over the fence and are now in a nuc! Most of the bees are inside the crate - big colony...

Bellyflop out the entrance probably! Lots of hives have gone from merrily foraging to "oh i know, let's swarm" mode.

Incredibly heavy supers on most hives so did a bit of swapping out capped frames for new frames and amassed about 5 filled supers that now need dealing with. Not much was even half capped but all passed the shake test and as I checked most and they were at 16%. Will have to do some clearing and...

July is the new June apparently!

:iagree:

17 degrees here yesterday and very breezy but saw a queen returning from a mating flight arrive back in the afternoon into one of my mini nucs accompanied by about a dozen bees whirling around her.

:iagree: I’ve had some lovely bees and queens from Paynes.

I’d say swarm mode.

Think mine are too busy bringing it in and storing it! Mind you, they’ve never capped particularly fast. Checked several uncapped frames - all at 18%

Likewise and getting too heavy to lift!

So the bait hive which had scouts round it two days ago turned out to be from one of my colonies which I’ve been trying to requeen since I split them at the start of the month. So I made them hopelessly queenless that day and popped in a recently mated queen from a mini nuc in a cage with a...

I’m sure bees will propolise and reduce an entrance they’re not happy with. They certainly did it in one of my nucs that I left a bit too wide!

Liking that idea. I’ve got a few frames that look like the surface of the moon with some very creative comb.

Shouldn't be, last inspection a week ago was all good. If it is, they'll only be flying about 6 feet and I guess at least I get to keep my bees!

What does scout bee action look like? I have a hive in the home apiary that's been set up as a bait hive (previously used brood box, solid floor, manky old bit of comb, lemon grass on a tissue, south facing small entrance etc) with not a sniff of action until this afternoon when about 20 bees...

I’m pretty sure it’s brambles here although quite a few privet hedges in flower too, but they’re going nuts as soon as it’s light enough to head out!

I’m sorry but I must disagree. Close up and have a cup of tea…. 😂😂😂

Added a brood box to a huge hive that I split recently. They already have 4 supers and they are boiling over with bees with still a fair amount of brood to emerge. Took ages to knock down all the EQCs produced. Have a spare mated queen in a mini mating nuc that I need to use so think I’m going...