My bottle went today, found four sealed cells in with her so moved her to a nuc and left them with one open cell. She didn't look too slimmed down to me, I was beginning to think she had already left.
The All blacks pictured above have built into a strong colony, calm bees on a brood nest of eighteen frames and three supers full of bees. By comparison, the colony next to them are happy in a single box with brood on ten frames. Stunningly gentle bees in dire need of a third super.
Yesterday I decided to vape a colony as I had the opportunity since they had no super on so I stuck a board in to check the results today. This colony has been ticking along after coming out of winter a little on the small side, however, she has kicked into gear and there suddenly look like a heck of a lot of bees in there. Another shining example of gentle behaviour, the combs are thick with bees and they do not move.
The mite count 24 hrs after vaping was zero, which is very pleasing considering the light touch treatment the colonies have had for the last two years. They now have a super full of shiny, new cut comb foundation to play with.
I have a batch of cells in the incubator which will be the last for this year despite good late results last year.
Busy counting spare, drawn supers now and getting woefully low, looks like the extractor will need dusting off.
