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Some of the lime trees nearby are starting to flower. Hopefully the conditions will be right for a good flow. The hives were certainly super busy first thing today.

If I didn’t live in the suburbs and was rather worried about swarms causing local panic, I would take a gamble and leave them to it as they do look like supersedure as per Wally Shaw’s “I’ve got swarm cells” publication. Risk it for a biscuit?

Did the sacrilegious thing yesterday of knocking down 2 QC’s instead of taking action. This is a hive where we reintroduced the queen 2 weeks ago (after 2 weeks in a nuc) as per a method of swarm control as described by the late Peter Little. All seemed ok and then yesterday discovered one...

I did the same with a nuc that was on its way out and they all seemed to go into the nearest hive with no fighting at all. They were mother and daughter queens but were split last year. On the main subject of the thread, we (re)united a nuc back with the original double brood hive by taking...

Gave one of my hives a frame of stores yesterday as they had none in brood area and a minimal amount in the super. This was a weak hive that we re-queened just over a month ago and now they have shed loads of brood to feed.

Expanded two hives from single brood to 8 frames over 8 double brood. Both had about 8 frames of brood. Took 7 frames of honey off the other hive with 3 supers. They’re filling the centre 6 frames in each super but not much outside of that (10 frames per super). Got some spring honey to jar...

7 days ago we merged a nuc back into the hive we had taken the queen out of from as swarm control 2 weeks previous. Was a bit nervous as we had just slotted the frames back into the top brood box with a bit of air freshner, but all was well with the queen alive and laying. Used a method as...

Here’s one I splodged last year. Still going strong.

Merged the nuc back in with the main hive yesterday, 2 weeks after nuc-ing the queen. This is the Peter Little method to keep the production hive going and avoid increase. Had to knock off 14 emergency cells from the frame we put in last week. Am a bit concerned as we are putting eggs and...

Good mask and a good price that. Got the same one from Screwfix last year but paid more.

Hive 1 checked the queen we introduced about 2.5 weeks ago. Looking good with about 6 frames of brood. Stuck a super on. Marked the queen in hive 2 that had evaded marking since last summer. Probably flattened her a bit much with the crown of thorns 😬 but she seemed ok after release. Hive 3 is...

Please keep us updated on the progress on this one.

https://thewalrusandthehoneybee.com/the-voice-of-peter-little-exmoor-bees/ @Erichalfbee Is this essentially it with the option of a new queen or the old one?

Will definitely look into that as I’m up for giving things a go that aren’t potentially terminal for the hive.

Point me in the direction of what he recommended. Bit late for us now I guess.

The big local hybrid hive we Demareed two weeks ago had about 5 smallish but well charged QC’s in lower BB so nuc’d the queen and left two nice QC’s to check next weekend. Bit gutted as was really trying to keep this hive together. Left alone the hive we recently requeened and stuck a second...

Was sitting in the office at work and someone posted on our street WhatsApp group that there’s a swarm of bees around and so “close all your windows”. Another helpful neighbour advised to leave out some sugar water and so they’ll get some energy to fly off 😂. Anyway, didn’t think they were ours...

I would also be interested in knowing how best to manage the situation of nectar going in after the brood has emerged. As it’s older brood frames that have had contact with apivar, not sure whether I would want to let them fill them and then extract. Was thinking of putting the whole BB under...

Found a number of sycamores a few streets away that look like they are about to flower.

I know we’ve got a load of maple near us which over now but not sure about sycamore. Will have a wander around. Horse Chestnut is in full bloom on Ealing Common but very few bees with brick red pollen coming into the hives. Could be collecting nectar from them though.