It's been just over a week since we divided our Bees into two colonies. The original hive has seemed quite active, the new one less so. We will need to take a look inside them both next week, to see if we can see any evidence that the new Queens have emerged safely.
In the meantime, we wanted to give them back the three frames we'd extracted honey from and also the wax cappings. We decided to do this yesterday evening. It needs to be in the evening, when Bees have gone to bed. If you do it during the day, scouting bees from other colonies might sniff out the free and easy honey, and be attracted to rob our hives.
So, last night, we took two shallow boxes to use as "ekes". Suited up - even though we weren't actually going into the hives , I'm not taking any risks with stings until all evidence of my previous adventure has gone - we carried the two boxes, plus an enormous plastic catering tub containing the frames and cappings, and the smoker, over to the bees.
DH lifted the roof off hive 2, and looked through the clear crown board. Hmmm. Not many bees in the Super. We'll look into this in a week or so and see what's happening. Slipped off the crown board, put the eke box on, put it back together. Job jobbed.
Hive 1. Lots of bees in the Supers. Hmm. Might need to add another Super. Will do a proper Inspection on Monday next week (weather permitting), and will take a new Super down just in case. Put the eke on, put it back together, job jobbed.
Spent some time cuddling baby chickens, and checking them over. Would have spent time cuddling the Breeding birds, but most of them had gone to bed. THe three Little Laydees were all piled on top of each other in a nest box in one house, with Roo asleep in the main roosting area. Ruby was (still) broody in a nest box in the other house, and Mrs Roo and Rose were still wandering about and didn't want to be cuddled, thank you very much.
