Funny how the mood takes you - I only started out today with the intention of bringing back a National from an out apiary and ended up removing 6 nicely heavy supers of honey from a couple of hives as well.
Perhaps it was just the weather, but being rather more time poor than of late, I decided to forego the old clearer boards in favour of a bee brush and a good 'shake' instead. The bees weren't flying strongly - a breeze and cooler than of late too, so I decided to lean the crown boards in front of the hive, and shake the bees off the combs onto the crown boards rather than into the hive - my logic being the bees would merely congregate on the unshaken combs....whereas the shaken bees outside would cluster and re-enter the hives.
It all worked very smoothly - 1 sting on the finger which was only the 2nd of the year and some very heavy honey supers to extract later this week.
Bees all appeared healthy, although I didn't do much delving into the brood chambers.
Hope everyone else has a surplus too !
S
Perhaps it was just the weather, but being rather more time poor than of late, I decided to forego the old clearer boards in favour of a bee brush and a good 'shake' instead. The bees weren't flying strongly - a breeze and cooler than of late too, so I decided to lean the crown boards in front of the hive, and shake the bees off the combs onto the crown boards rather than into the hive - my logic being the bees would merely congregate on the unshaken combs....whereas the shaken bees outside would cluster and re-enter the hives.
It all worked very smoothly - 1 sting on the finger which was only the 2nd of the year and some very heavy honey supers to extract later this week.
Bees all appeared healthy, although I didn't do much delving into the brood chambers.
Hope everyone else has a surplus too !
S
