Just come back from the Bee Auction at Lincoln (not tempted by anything – although an extractor is high on our list).
Decided to take advice from my mentor and other (revered) bee keepers - to add more room in the brood chamber. Thoughts are that the bees are over crowded (certainly a lot of bees in there last time we had a look!)
We will probably use a super that was (accidentally) left in (which the bees cleared by the way) when we used Apigard last autumn. Still smells a bit of thymol so I guess I won’t be using it for the honey crop anyway.
So, as soon as the weather allows (sods law, its gone cooler now ) the super goes on over the brood and the queen excluder on top of that. We will then have a brood and a half. All this will be done after we have had a bee inspection to make sure all is well – and of course all this hangs on the weather now!
In the meantime some bees are still foraging, even in this cool weather.
Decided to take advice from my mentor and other (revered) bee keepers - to add more room in the brood chamber. Thoughts are that the bees are over crowded (certainly a lot of bees in there last time we had a look!)
We will probably use a super that was (accidentally) left in (which the bees cleared by the way) when we used Apigard last autumn. Still smells a bit of thymol so I guess I won’t be using it for the honey crop anyway.
So, as soon as the weather allows (sods law, its gone cooler now ) the super goes on over the brood and the queen excluder on top of that. We will then have a brood and a half. All this will be done after we have had a bee inspection to make sure all is well – and of course all this hangs on the weather now!
In the meantime some bees are still foraging, even in this cool weather.