Author: scbka

A well attended inspection. We split into 4 groups. We had planned a grand finale with unveiling of David’s cup kit cell bar frame. For those that are not aware the planning and preparation for this queen rearing experiment has taken a psychological and emotional toll on David and his long suffering wife. There were a whopping 18 takes out of 20. A spectacular result! Well done David. But the bees planned to steal the show by swarming undernetah one of the hives next to us. A most enjoyable day by all.

Road maintenance conspired to block access but four of us eventually made it through. We took down excess queen cells from the splits made last inspection leaving just one cell in each. Other colonies are preparing to swarm so more splits made. A strong colony was prepared for a queen rearing session.

David received an eye watering sting on the nose. The advice from Faz is to wear a baseball hat to keep the veil pushed away from the nose.

Two colonies with charged queen cells. A third has evidently already swarmed with sealed queen cells and no eggs. The colony on double brood was split into two each half left with 1 charged queen cell. 

I saw something today I have never seen before. Alan sniffed a bee up his nose, calmly walked away to remove his veil, and then blew the bee out. He was not even stung. Very impressive!  

Welcome to everyone who joined recently. The first inspection of the season at our association apiary. The bees were well behaved. The colonies that survived the winter are building up well taking advantage of spring blossom. We even added a few supers!