Mrs FG sacked me after last week's clumsy handling, and she did the tricky bit today whilst I puffed smoke and lifted heavy stuff 
The first colony is looking pretty strong - there are now LOTS of bees, covering the frames in the top box and building out the empty frames in the bottom box.
We didn't see eggs, although there were some empty cells that probably had eggs in them. We did see small and large larvae, capped brood, quite a few drones, lots of stores.
At the top, the four outside frames were almost totally stores, with half brood-rearing in the next ones in and half stores. The 4 central frames were pretty solid brood-rearing with some stores along the top.
In the bottom box, all but the outside 2 frames now have some comb built in them. The central 4 or 5 were probably half-filling the frames with beautiful white comb. These had some capped honey, lots of pollen and the some capped brood. There may have been eggs in these too but we aren't good enough to see them with a bright white comb background lit by a cloudy sky.
Some of the bottom combs were stuck together (again) so we gently prised them apart - bees weren't happy with this - and put them in the other way around. Not sure if this is a major sin, but it seemed sensible: now they don't have two bulging frame-ends next to each other and they're less likely to glue them together again. The bulges were consistently at the front, so now two of the frames have the bulges at the back.
We inspected the bottom box first today to avoid the dripped honey from separating two frames in the top box driving them mad as we inspected the bottom box - this is what happened last week.
Very few bees hurt this time. Lots of smoke needed as the inspection took a while with two boxes to go through. Still a bit of a crush trying to put the top box back on with the rebated box not allowing 'place and rotate'.
We had a couple of grumpy guards, but not as cross as last time. One bee followed for a while, but again not as badly as last time.
Well done, Mrs FG. Maybe I'll get the chance to check on Colony 2, tomorrow.
FG
The first colony is looking pretty strong - there are now LOTS of bees, covering the frames in the top box and building out the empty frames in the bottom box.
We didn't see eggs, although there were some empty cells that probably had eggs in them. We did see small and large larvae, capped brood, quite a few drones, lots of stores.
At the top, the four outside frames were almost totally stores, with half brood-rearing in the next ones in and half stores. The 4 central frames were pretty solid brood-rearing with some stores along the top.
In the bottom box, all but the outside 2 frames now have some comb built in them. The central 4 or 5 were probably half-filling the frames with beautiful white comb. These had some capped honey, lots of pollen and the some capped brood. There may have been eggs in these too but we aren't good enough to see them with a bright white comb background lit by a cloudy sky.
Some of the bottom combs were stuck together (again) so we gently prised them apart - bees weren't happy with this - and put them in the other way around. Not sure if this is a major sin, but it seemed sensible: now they don't have two bulging frame-ends next to each other and they're less likely to glue them together again. The bulges were consistently at the front, so now two of the frames have the bulges at the back.
We inspected the bottom box first today to avoid the dripped honey from separating two frames in the top box driving them mad as we inspected the bottom box - this is what happened last week.
Very few bees hurt this time. Lots of smoke needed as the inspection took a while with two boxes to go through. Still a bit of a crush trying to put the top box back on with the rebated box not allowing 'place and rotate'.
We had a couple of grumpy guards, but not as cross as last time. One bee followed for a while, but again not as badly as last time.
Well done, Mrs FG. Maybe I'll get the chance to check on Colony 2, tomorrow.
FG
