Had a productive evening.
Captured a small swarm in a bait hive. 4 frame of bees so will fill a nuc nicely. They have stayed put for the time being. Will check tomorrow for the queen but pretty sure they are mine, probably unmarked from the queen castle that I have been experimenting with (not very well)!
Managed to get a local welsh black virgin accepted into a nuc so will use that to breed a few hybrids later in the year. The buckfast killed the other one.
My first nuc of the year was bursting at the seams so they have gone into a full hive.
Supers are being capped all over the place.
Started the year with 4 big, healthy colonies.
Now have 5 big healthy honey producers with 2015 queens, 5 small but rapidly building colonies with 2016 queens (all on between 6-9 frame of brood) that will be ready for the main flow on 2016 queens, 1 nuc virgin, 1 nuc with mated 2016 queen and a queen castle with 3 x 3 frame colonies awaiting virgins to emerge.
All created organically in addition to at least 9 full and nearly capped supers.
Its been some spring!!
are they all like this??
My plan is to run 5 x honey hives each year with queens from the previous year then use the 2 year old queens to make splits and breed for the following years honey producers.
does anybody else use a similar system??
