Report from David on the latest from the association apiary:-
After watching the weather forecast, I went along to the bees at 1.30pm today and was helped by Mandy and assisted by Shirley Sharpe and Elaine and Alan Murrison.
Hive 1 (the furthest away) was very grumpy! They had very little stores, so Mandy gave them some syrup trickled over a couple of frames. We closed them up and after a short while they were noticeably calmer. Our short opening and closing of the hive will have released a few drones from above the excluder, but we didn’t go through the brood box. It can be checked on the next visit – but be well suited up!
Hive 2 had quite a few queen cells, so we made up two Apideas which I have here to hopefully hatch, mate an start laying. We removed all but one remaining sealed queen cell.
Hive 3 looked as though the queen cell had been pulled down by the bees. It didn’t have a lot of bees and no brood, so we placed in two of the queen cells we had removed from Hive 2, in the hope that at least one of them is viable and hatches out alright.
As we headed back to the cars, Shirley was carefully carrying the Apideas and remarked “one of them was quacking, like a duck”! She was quite right, it was a queen piping . . . what an extraordinary sound. I recorded it on my phone and have attached a copy. Maybe it could go on the web site?
Queen piping in apidea 19 06 18