OK so I wonder is anyone else having blog problems- I have written posts and scheduled them but either they are not appearing or only the title! My last post about the little pile of dead bees outside the hive seems to be lost and I haven't the heart to go back and write it again- especially as the weather is conspiring against us getting into the hives.
Yesterday- after a gap of 9 days we went to Cordwood and one of the hives had a swarm under it!! The weather since we last went in has been been cold, frosts over night and certainly not the sort of weather for opening up a hive, but the bees obviously have been busy inside. The queen had decided it was too cold to go far and just snuck in under the hive where it was warm. We brushed all the bees we could (and hopefully the queen) into a box and emptied them into a nuc just next to the hive, in the hope that they would think it was a suitable home and move in. Today we will go back and see. Because there was a gap in the rain we had a quick look inside and found 3 lovely queen cups on one frame- must have just been capped and the break in the rain had made the bees decide to go for it! This year we have prepared equipment ready to perform artifical swarms and maybe raise some nucs but we have learnt again that the weather just does not work with us!!
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