We decided to bring forward the session because of the weather looking doubtful on the Sunday. So we had it at 5.00pm on Saturday afternoon. It turned out to be a beautiful evening so we were able to take our time looking through the hives. We finished at 7.00pm when it was still sunny & warm.
We had not had a session the previous week so it was important we looked at them to check on their stores and see if there were any signs of wanting to swarm.
Our three main colonies are doing fine. They each had stores and, although not plentiful, there was enough to keep them going.
On one of the frames we found some queen cells. It was difficult to see if there were any eggs in them but having pulled one apart we decided there wasn’t.
All the beginners there did see eggs in some of the other frames so another positive in their beekeeping journey.
Another bit of good news was when we came to look through the hive that had Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus. Although the immediate signs were not good in that there was another load of dead bees underneath the hive, when we looked in there was still quite a few bees there and no signs of shivering, shaking or hairless bees so they may have come through this. We also saw some torn down Queen cells, so potentially some virgins could have emerged.
A fortnight ago there had been some charged Queen cells in the hive but we did not think there would be enough bees left to manage them. We may be wrong. If there is a virgin there and she gets mated the colony may be saved, especially as the CBPV symptoms seem to have lessened.
So we will just have to hope for some good weather this coming week unless she has already taken advantage of today’s good weather. So, in some respects it was good that we looked through later in the day not in the middle when she could have been out on a mating flight.
They were very short on stores so we placed a feeder inside the super and two of our beginners were coming back later to put in some sugar syrup.
So……… next week we will be looking for eggs in this hive plus any signs of swarming in the others as they are all building up and again checking on stores.
