21st July - Inspections and observations

I inspected all hives at lunchtime today. The bees were in much better humour than they were during the previous inspections. I suffered one sting only when one bee tried to investigate the hive tool and became trapped unnoticed between the tool and the palm of my hand.
All hives are healthy but the foraging is not providing a lot of production. Today is another chilly and overcast day so I'm not expecting a lot of nectar to be collected.
There will be honey but a lot of the supers still contain nectar which requires ripening. There is time for this but it's not going to be a patch on last year's performance
There was an unusual episode when hive 3 bees gathered in great numbers on the front of the hive and in a cloud in front of the entrance while I worked on its neighbour. I thought they were about to swarm but within minutes they all went back inside. When I subsequently inspected that hive the bees behaved as though nothing had happened and there were no signs of swarm preparation. They were just keeping me alert

 

[Gilberdyke John]

23rd July - a swarm arrived and settled on top of empty hive 7.
I happened to look at the apiary at lunchtime and saw what looked like a brown iced cake on top of hive 7 which was recently built but unoccupied. Looking more closely I realised there was a swarm of bees settled on a brick which was on top of the hive to stop wind disturbance. I suited up and populated the empty box with frames of foundation then shook the bees into the hive. They rapidly went down into the frames and bees began fanning at the entrance. I closed up and left them to settle in.
I looked in hive 3 which had been behaving oddly at the last inspection but had shown no preparation for swarming. Again nothing untoward was evident today.
I'm suspicious the swarm is yet another arrival from the non intervention beek at the South side of the village.