Some expansion, but less than I'd hoped for.

Mrs FG did the whole inspection - her first!

This is very good news (useful to have a beekeeping partner), but she wasn't keen on broadcasting the video

We didn't see the queen, nor eggs, nor larvae. The capped brood pattern has changed - the central portion of a few brood frames have now hatched out. I was hoping to see replacement eggs or grubs but no luck. Probably our lack of experience coupled with fairly bad light under the shade of some trees. We'll have to reverse the inspection next time and get the sunnier patch of sky behind us.

Some extra frame sides have been drawn out, but there's still lots of space left to grow into - I had thought they'd be expanding a bit faster with all this good weather.

Must be patient I suppose. Next week, we'll do a proper queen hunt.

FG

 

[MrB]

wot no video

 

[gandalfwhitewizard]

FG,

Take it that you had no queen cells? Do you have them closed up with a dummy board and letting them draw a couple of frames at time rather than all of them?
If you have more bees then they will probably be able to draw more wax out. Perhaps might be worth having another look for eggs.
GWW

 

[oliver90owner]

I would be concerned if there were no larvae seen. They are fairly obvious and you need to see/log these, to understand how the broodnest is expanding, especially if you cannot see eggs. At least if there are no emergency queen cells the queen has not come to grief, but nevertheless, if she has stopped laying..........

Regards, RAB

 

[Firegazer]

Maybe I'll break the 'once a week only' rule and have a really good look when the temperature gets up enough.

Mrs FG was still in the 'Ooooh look at that!' stage and the bees had been exposed for quite a while. We also need to reverse our inspection direction - the foliage has really grown out from the Holly tree the hive is near: it's getting hard to see what's happening from that direction.

I'll knock up a video for friends only - Mrs FG didn't want to be on YouTube with her first inspection.

Definitely no queen cells. Pretty much the same as last week except some of the capped brood has emerged. A little bit of expansion but not much.

I don't have them compressed to one side with a dummy board; there's two empty frames each side of the broodnest. Should I give them just one each side until they've used them?

FG

 

[kazmcc]

Tell Mrs FG.....Well Done You can set you tube so the only people who can see the video are people who have the link....it won't come up in searches. Maybe she'd feel better about posting it if you used those settings.

Kaz