Cover me I am not going in

It is true that I have been itching to get into those hives. It is also true that I am curious as to the progress of all five colonies. It is not true that they need me poking around in their business. Each time I have both the opportunity and inclination to perform a hive inspection I am trying to ask myself the question "What am I trying to achieve?". If the answer is "I don't know", or "I just fancy a look" then I am going to fight the urge to open'er up!

As we enter the run up to the end of July the laying rate of the Queen will begin to drop off, the nectar flow will slow or stabilise, and risk of swarming will reduce. Since I feel as though there is less need to be searching for queen cells I decided to assess the colonies externally. There are different types of hive inspection and indeed observing the hive entrance can tell you a lot. The book linked to here within the Biobees forum library outlines season by season the observations that can made and their meanings. This also meant that instead of carrying a hive tool, water mister, and box of spare topbars I could take my camera!

The Brewery Bees:
The newly arrived swarm have now been on the roof of my shed for a week. I am awaiting one of two new natural beekeepers to collect them as their first colony. The Hop Queen may be an early queen from this year or one of last year's queens. The shear size of the swarm suggested a prime swarm and the fact that there was pollen being taken in within 3 days certainly suggests a laying queen is present. Being on the top of my shed I pass them every morning on the way to the car and several times in the evening. They are active from at least 7:15am through to at least 9:00pm. That is a long work day.

orange pollen going in

Grey pollen possibly bramble

By tapping the top bars with my knife handle I can also guess they have 5 bars worth of comb so far, which isn't bad going for a week. Since they are new to this bait hive even a prolific colony will be fine in there for at least about two-three weeks so no need to actually go in. If fact I wouldn't inspect these until they are in their final destination hive. All the bars can be transferred in one go keeping the cluster intact for minimal disturbance.

Phoebee's Girls:This remains the busiest hive by far. Following the combine of the queenless section of the hive with the queenright side the entrance activity has only increased. There are no large numbers of dead bees outside the hive and despite the HUGE number of bees they haven't become defensive. This suggests the combination has gone ahead with little in the way of resistance. Again by tapping the hive there is significant activity along the full length on the hive suggesting they are making use of the empty comb the queenless colony had.

Phoebee's Hive extremely busy at all entrances. A cloud of bees coming and going.

Following the start of a little rain everyone coming home.

Obviously with this many bees and at a time of year when wax building is reduced there is a danger the comb will be back-filled and the colony will swarm. HOWEVER, they don't need to build any wax the colony combine has just "donated" them at least 10 full combs to be getting along with. Lots of space, no need to swarm (fingers crossed).

Warré hive (the sneaky bees):Since the new roof, box underneath and the holes being plugged this colony has steadily built in strength. There appear to be a few more bees flying each day. Looking through the viewing window I can see bees investigating the second boxes topbars. There is a danger that the colony will see this second set as a false floor and swarm. I have a few bait hives out and can look to see if there is any scout bee activity. This obviously tells me if any bees in the area are thinking of swarming rather than specifically my bees but it is useful none the less. 

Hopefully the slow and steady growth Mata Hari is leading will allow the comb building to stay ahead of the laying.

Poppy hive:This hive is not nearly as busy as they were when they first turned up. This may very well be a result of a post-swarm 'lag' when the bees from the original swarm are dying off and the new bees are not quite flying yet. They will also have brood to look after rather than only foraging to do. It will take a while following a swarm for bee numbers to reach an equilibrium. This hive is definitely busier in the morning than the afternoon and I remember they propolysed the bait hive heavily suggesting they may be caucasian race. I doubt they have made any roads down into the bottom box nadirred a few weeks back, but the fact that it was nadirred instead of superred means they shouldn't be losing any heat.

'hey dude! you're going the wrong way'

With the fact that they are a recent swarm, the space I know is in there and the drop off in activity further swarming is currently unlikely.

Boudica and the Iceni (meany bees):Much more chilled out and not at all defensive at the entrance. It may be that the defensiveness I have seen is all just a hangover from the terrible installation I performed. Add to this the colouring I have noticed on Boudica herself suggests that these may also be a caucasians bee strain. They are well known for taking a long time to calm down after a challenge. This makes sense as if I am collecting another beekeepers swarms they are likely to have all the same or closely related bees.

much calmer at the entrance

During the last inspection I provided a few extra bars and noted they are not expanding fast. This colony had wax starter strips instead of comb guide on their first bars so they have built across a lot of bars but have wide shallow comb. They therefore have lots of space to still expand down. They are covering at least 11 bars with a few spare for building. Recent swarm with space available and little time to build stores so swarming again unlikely.

So I have managed to do an inspection of each hive without removing a single bar. How stupid am I going to look if they all swarm now :)