Fairwell Phoebee

I have today (fri 1st aug) returned from a week away. I have inspected the hives and…..

Big beautiful boudica is being elusive but the hive is growing well. We saw brood in all stages and nectar is obviously coming in. Since their dramatic arrival as a swarm they have built 14 combs, 9 brood comb, and 5 honey combs. The brood pattern is solid and their temper is much better. Their tenant Mrs Fieldmouse was however looking a little lonely. Her children all grown up had now left home which unfortunately meant eviction for her.

Mata hari’s sneaky bees have been steady growers and there appears to be a bigger cloud outside the entrance everytime I visit. The viewing window tells me though that they still haven’t moved down in their warré. They must be reaching critical mass. Will they swarm? Will they grow down? Every day seems to tip the odds a little more in favour of the former.

Kyle did his first supervised inspection on the brewery bees. He did well,  though I had to take over when there was some cross comb. They have 7 combs, 5 of which are complete. We saw the Hop Queen herself but since the colony is a new swarm and are still so small there was a surprisingly large amount of drone brood, any would be a lot at this stage. There also appeared as though there may have been a couple of queen cells. It is possible this an old queen or at least poorly mated queen and she is running out of fertilised eggs. Hopefully the bees will manage to supercede her successfully.

The bees of the poppy hive, like their Warré neighbours, are showing no signs of moving down either.  As such I have made a cowardly decision and supered the previously nadired box *blushes shamefully*. There is still time for them to build up that box and hopefully by spring the bottom box will be empty where they have moved up with the stores.

And finally the headline story :(
I checked my large top bar hive before I went away on holiday. There was minimal young brood, pollen and nectar being placed in comb previously packed with brood, and of course queen cups. Eh oh, the dreaded swarming preparation. I have to admit I was surprised, the combine I had performed provided them with quite a lot of empty comb they could use but other than a few bees hanging out down there they hadn’t used it to store a thing. I was short on time and I fear a little late in the day. I moved a little of that unused comb (brood type) down into the brood nest hoping to give the queen some laying room.  I made sure I had some swarm traps primed and ready and went on holiday.
I returned to a hive containing some capped brood a LOT of stored nectar,  a number of capped queen cells, and empty swarm traps. Having never checked them I don’t know which queen cells are occupied so have decided to let nature take it’s course.  Queen Phoebee was my first queen. She arrived on the 27th July last year as a very small cast swarm. Her leaving marks the 1st anniversary of me as a bee keeper. I wish her well and hope she finds a good home. Fairwell Phoebee, you were a good queen and taught me much.