It was mild and sunny here on Friday afternoon, a balmy 14c. I inspected 5 hives in my sheltered apiary, high walls and a sun trap. 3 hives had 5 frames of bias and one had 4. The fifth hive had a failing queen with small patches of brood and one open charged queen cell. If it had been mid May I would have left it and hoped for a nice supersedure but it’s far too early for that up here. The temperature is forecast to barely reach double figures for the next 2 weeks and there won’t be many drones about till the middle of next month. So I dispatched the failing queen and will unite the colony with one of my over wintered nucs when there’s a break in the weather.
The hives were all rammed with stores so I removed some of the store frames to give the queens more room to lay. It will only be 7-8c max here for the next few days so I wouldn’t be surprised if laying stops for a wee while. I just hope they will be enough bees to maintain the brood that they have at the moment. Stop start laying is common here at this time of year. Finally our bees take a while to build up here and the number of brood frames is probably above average for this time of year!