Inspected my bees today

[VEG]

went through my 4 hives and 2 hives owned by the farm I keep them on.
3 of my hives are doing really well one on double brood has brood/eggs top and bottom over about 8 frames in total saw the queen and marked her as well. Will leave this one going to split it later. MArked the queens in the other hives as well. One of them is an overwintered nuc. A really good looking queen lots of bees but a few eggs in some cells, there are no drone cells so I just hope she is getting going as there is brood there as well.

I also went through the 2 hives owned by the farm, they are in a hell of a mess. Moved one hive to clean the floor and the floor fell to bits. Lucky I took a spare one with me. In one hive there was the smallest queen I have ever seen, lots of brood/eggs so she is laying well. I had to watch her for ages as I thought it cant be the queen. She then went and laid an egg in a cell. I have told the lady she needs new hives as they are falling apart.

I am so glad I moved them from the previous site (vandalism) Its nice to be beekeeping again!

 

[Haughton Honey]

Well done Veg. A great outcome.

Bee keeping should be a pleasure and not a pain.

 

[Rosti]

Congrats Veg, sounds like you have come out of winter strongly!

What method did you use for capture and marking? Have bought a pen this year and plan to use my crown-of-thornes again (used tipex last year). Your post is timely because I plan to mark mine this w/e. They are forging ahead and on spring syrup to get them ready for the rape, before long I hope I'll have the problem of spotting her!

 

[VEG]

I use the crown of thornes. I trap the queen gently dont push it into comb. I then blow on it gently, the workers tend to get out between the points. I then gently trap the queen with pen at hand ready to mark. I always use white and keep a record of the year the queen started in that hive.

 

[Rosti]

Tx, broadly the same (he has the cheek to say having only done it once)