Sunday, February 14, 2016

The hive is back in action

Checked hive 2, the brown one, yesterday and there were egg cells, so I have a functioning queen again, what a relief! Having said that I nearly stuffed it up again. I made another hive lid with a hole in it covered with some steel mesh so that there is some ventilation for the hive.
I took the old hive mat off to replace it, but something caught my eye, I thought I saw the queen. Looked all over the grass, and then checked the lid and there she was. Gently (I hope) brushed all the bees back into the hive, so will check again next weekend to make sure she is still there.
This all started last winter, I decided to keep bees so went on a bee keeping course with the Auckland Beekeeping Club.
I caught 2 swarms, one I gave to Greg, and the other I kept, and I also bought a nuc from Carol at the ABC.
The swarm I kept seemed small and after drawing out 4 frames didn't really do anything else. I was worried about this and, after advice from the bee forum, swapped the hives around and started feeding sugar syrup. The hive responded nicely and now looks quite strong.
I put both hives onto a pallet, but in doing so I think I killed the queen in the nuc hive. When I check a few days later there were queen cells in the hive so I removed all except one and then waited. And that takes me back the the start of this post.