2024-04-27 Sold.
2024-04-23 Reduced to 11 frames and transferred the frames into the buyers box.
2024-04-20 Saw eggs and brood, didn’t see the queen. There are 5 frames in the top and 5 frames in the bottom with white ends that are marked for sale.
2024-04-11 Saw the marked queen. There was plenty of brood and eggs, maybe about 10 frames in the top and bottom boxes. There was also some patches of well developed drone cells, looking rough but serviceable.
2023-12-21 Put on a candy block.
2023-09-23 Apiguard varroa treatment off.
2023-08-25 Second Apiguard varroa treatment.
2023-08-12 Started Apiguard treatment.
2013-07-29 Started drawing and filling the frames in the top box. There aren’t a great deal of stores considering how much they have been fed lately but it has been raining a lot. One frame of eggs in the top brood box, didn’t see the queen. No signs of swarming.
2023-07-22 They are taking down the feed but not particularly drawing out the frames in the top box. No signs of swarming but I didn’t look in the top box.
2023-07-09 Moved to a new position and shook in 4 frames of bees from the original site. Left Ruby in place with 11 frames to raise a new queen.
2023-07-01 Eggs, grubs, saw the queen. No signs of swarming.
2023-06-22 Only went through the top brood box. Saw grubs and eggs but not the queen. There was one queen cell charged with food but I couldn’t see a grub in it. Otherwise no signs of swarming. There were quite a lot of bees so we added another super. The top two supers are quite heavy so could be cleared and removed shortly.
2023-06-16 Saw grubs, eggs and the queen. No signs of swarming. Marked the queen yellow. The supers all seem to be in use so put another one on.
2023-06-10 Saw grubs and eggs, didn’t see the queen. Con figured to be 10 x 10 in the brood boxes.
2023-06-08 Did a sandwich merge in the evening with a queenless swarm, this added another brood box because there is a lot of brood and they were making queen cups.
2023-06-03 Saw grubs and eggs, didn’t see the queen. Configured so they are now 10 on 10 with a dummy board in each brood box. The upper brood box is only partially drawn so there is a lot of space there. The two supers are medium weight but I don’t think it is oil seed rape nectar so there is no hurry to get them off.
2023-06-08 Added a second brood box with a queenless swarm. Did a sandwich unite with the 2 supers on top.
2023-06-04 Saw grubs and the queen, didn’t mark her. All looks good. Took off 2 supers, put a clearer board in to clear another one.
2023-06-04 Put on a clearer board to clear 3 supers, this doesn’t leave much space to I put on another super, so there are 5 in total.
2023-05-21 Checked the supers, they have nectar in them and a few frame are sealed. The undrawn frames that I added have not been drawn yet, so I decided not to put on the clearer boards but to wait until the beginning of June (this is the earliest that we have cleared supers in previous years). The yellow oil seed rape pollen has stopped coming in, now they are bringing in light grey raspberry pollen.
2023-05-07 Culled down to one queen cell on the bottom in the middle of the 5th frame from the south. Marked with a black pin. Lots of bees so I added two supers.
2023-04-30 Made up with 11 frames of brood from Yvette.