22nd June - inspections and a harvest.

Following my recent surgical procedure I enlisted help from a fellow BABKA member to accompany me in going through the hives. I felt it likely there would be heavy supers to lift and this proved to be true. Some were not ripe but three were full and capped so we shook the bees off each frame and carried those to a barrow for removal to be extracted.
No 3 hive appears to have become queenless as there were no eggs or larvae and the marked queen not seen. However no7 which was weak is increasing steadily. I will monitor these two and try a test frame in no3 with a view to a possible unite.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Spent a couple of hours cleaning the equipment then extracted the supers we took off the hives on Tuesday. A light colour and quite mobile..I wondered if it was high in moisture but the refractor read 17%
It's in settling buckets now getting ready for jarring