It's been a while since I last blogged - and a while since I last looked in the hives. A lot has been going on and it's difficult to know where to start. So in date order...
Last Friday (yes 5 days ago!) I looked in my nice "Blue" hive at home to see what has been going on with respect to Queen Cells. I'm happy to report that no new cells have been made, and the ones I removed have not been rebuilt! So does this mean swarming season is over for me???? Famous Last Words I expect. This good news (?) means I didn't do any Demaree swarm control and have instead enjoyed seeing my girls pack away the honey! Two supers are full and the other one is now filling. Not enough for me to want to put another one on, but it's coming on nicely. Next week I may add something as the weather is supposed to be good!
On Saturday I looked in on my City Hives. The one down the road from the Botanical Gardens is beginning to build out the super I added last week and even some honey is being stored! I couldn't see much else in the hive as it started to rain as I began the inspection. But this hive is doing well in this neighbourhood!
Also on Saturday I looked in the Botanical Garden Hive. This has been about a week behind the other hive. And although still a bit behind I put a super on just to help get things moving if the weather and honey flow improve next week. It looks healthy and adding the super makes me feel good about it!!!
Finally my "White" hive at home. I managed to look at this today after helping Susan with her bees. If you remember I was executing swarm control measures on this hive (The Demaree method). Last week (20th May) I removed about 7 Queen cells from the top hive bodies where the nurse bees are/were. Today I saw no Queen Cells. Which is both predictable I suppose, but also a nice relief! Instead the deeps above the queen excluder are filling with food stores. The deep that is under the queen excluder has eggs, brood, larvae in it, but again no Queen Cells! So I have (perhaps a bit rashly) removed the queen excluder and put the deeps back on the hive, under the stack of supers. I'm hoping that this will encourage some more foraging and brood rearing as the queen (wherever she is) now has room to move up through the hive and lay, lay, lay! I guess I shouldn't rush to get back into this hive - perhaps in a week or 10 days time...
Maybe, just maybe my bees have passed the time that they will want to swarm this year? But having said that I fully expect to be proved wrong and have my theory torn up right in front of me!!!
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