2020-07-19 Laying worker, so I shook them out and put the frames in Bethany.
2020-07-17 Pollen going into the hive, so that is a good sign, I think. I had a look and there are grubs but a couple of them look like they might turn out to be drones. I think it might be a laying worker.
2020-07-10 No signs of laying queen, I probably shouldn’t have bothered looking but I was passing and curiosity got the better of me.
2020-06-24 Culled them down to 1 queen cell on the South face of frame 3 counting from the South (marked with a yellow pin). I think putting in brood might have messed them up. Not sure that it really is a useful technique for determining queenlessness, it might just add to the confusion.
2020-06-23 A few sealed queen cells so I guess there isn’t a queen in there. They did seem a bit calmer.
2020-06-13 No sign of eggs or the queen. Still peevish. I put in a frame of eggs and brood from Kate to see it they make a queen.
2020-06-07 Saw the queen, she is brown like the rest of them. No eggs and on the whole they were all a bit peevish.
2020-06-02 Found a clump of brown bees with a queen in on one of the other hives. The hive with the swarm in was pissed when I opened it. I am assuming that this is a mating flight or that the queen tried to swarm again yesterday. I brushed the clump into a dust pan and shook them into the hive with the swarm. They bees immediately started fanning at the entrance.
2020-05-31 Swarm collected from All Stretton. The bees are light banded brown.