Most of this month has been spent going back and forth with honey to be extracted and wet frames returned.
It has been time-consuming and frustrating as the bees are very slow this year in filling all the frames and capping them which makes it difficult to decide which to take off.
However, this is where the refractometer comes in handy. If you test the honey, even if the frame is not fully capped, the moisture content can still be low enough to warrant extraction.
Some of the bees are all coming in with white heads and bodies which means they are foraging on Himalayan Balsam. The river is very near the apiary and this plant grows along riversides.
On Sunday the last of the frames to be extracted came off so the varroa treatment went on. It is traditional to use a thymol based treatment at this time of year as it needs a warmer temperature. We had put the trays in a week before to check the mite drop which was surprisingly low in most of the hives, ranging from 5 to 30. It will be interesting to see the drop after a week of treatment.
All the hives except the second WBC are doing well. The Queen has been seen in each of them plus brood in all stages.
In the second WBC we thought a virgin had emerged from the emergency queen cells seen at the end of July. However, although we have been through the hive on many occasions this month, we have not seen a virgin or eggs. But the bees seemed placid as if they are queen-right.
It is a difficult situation to be in. It is a risk uniting it with an established colony just in case there is a queen there. That could result in the established queen being killed. However, the longer you leave a potentially queenless colony, the more you risk ending up with laying workers.
On Sunday the decision was taken to unite with the established colony next to it. Hopefully this has worked and we’ve got a good strong colony to go through the winter