Well the two nucs out on the farm are doing well and have moved into 14x12 boxes using the converters available from Thornes. Both seem to be building up well and the field/orchard is a mass of buttercups at the moment.
Had a bit of a drama when the farmer who owns it moved his calves there to graze and forgot to warn me. Two knocked over hives later they are now fenced in with barbed wire and a metal gate or two, so no long term damage done.
My overwintered colony on the branch aipary have been building up well, stopped to check them on the way to our branch meeting last week and bingo, found quite a few swarm cells. By co-incidence our talk that night was on swarm control, returned the next day armed with the info from the night before and the advice of the branch aipary manager.
Put her maj on her frame in a new box 14x12 (may as well get them onto same frame size as my others) shook all the bees into this box with new frames of foundation and then the remaining frames of brood minus the queen cells on top separated by a super, queen excluder and crown board.
The idea i believe is that the house bees will move up to look after the brood and start new queen cells if they want, whilst the bees down below will draw out the foundation and get going.
Had a bit of a drama when the farmer who owns it moved his calves there to graze and forgot to warn me. Two knocked over hives later they are now fenced in with barbed wire and a metal gate or two, so no long term damage done.
My overwintered colony on the branch aipary have been building up well, stopped to check them on the way to our branch meeting last week and bingo, found quite a few swarm cells. By co-incidence our talk that night was on swarm control, returned the next day armed with the info from the night before and the advice of the branch aipary manager.
Put her maj on her frame in a new box 14x12 (may as well get them onto same frame size as my others) shook all the bees into this box with new frames of foundation and then the remaining frames of brood minus the queen cells on top separated by a super, queen excluder and crown board.
The idea i believe is that the house bees will move up to look after the brood and start new queen cells if they want, whilst the bees down below will draw out the foundation and get going.
