Not much going on around the entrance. A couple of bees from H1 came to try and scare us off. Openedup the hive, and started the inspection. The old frame in the Eke has been partially cleaned, we tried to turn it over but it was to stuck.
Supers are drawn out
Frames had lots - and lots - of stores, a combination of capped and uncapped. A bit of propolis made the frames stick. Not a huge number of bees in the outside frames. Plenty of bees on the inside frames. Didn't see the Queen. Got to frame 8, which is the half frame (put in so they build their own comb underneath and fill with drone cells, which you can then inspect for Varroa) and thought saw eggs. The cells were very polished. Had a debate about why there would be eggs here. In the end we realised that much of the brood frames were full of stores, so this was probably the only place for them to put eggs until they moved the stores upstairs into the super.
We completed the inspection, 9 and 10 were old stores. Didn't see any more eggs, so we went back to frame 8 and checked again. Still think it could be eggs.
Closed up.
Need to read up on uniting hives, to come up with a plan of action. Ideally we would wait untilour next inspection, to be certain of whether there were eggs, but that might be too late for Hive 1.
Bees were beautifully calm. Didn't follow us at all!
By the way, my voice recorder makesh me shound like I have a speech impediment. I was more than a little relieved when DH commented - unprompted - that the voice on the recorder didn't shound like me.
Supers are drawn out
Frames had lots - and lots - of stores, a combination of capped and uncapped. A bit of propolis made the frames stick. Not a huge number of bees in the outside frames. Plenty of bees on the inside frames. Didn't see the Queen. Got to frame 8, which is the half frame (put in so they build their own comb underneath and fill with drone cells, which you can then inspect for Varroa) and thought saw eggs. The cells were very polished. Had a debate about why there would be eggs here. In the end we realised that much of the brood frames were full of stores, so this was probably the only place for them to put eggs until they moved the stores upstairs into the super.
We completed the inspection, 9 and 10 were old stores. Didn't see any more eggs, so we went back to frame 8 and checked again. Still think it could be eggs.
Closed up.
Need to read up on uniting hives, to come up with a plan of action. Ideally we would wait untilour next inspection, to be certain of whether there were eggs, but that might be too late for Hive 1.
Bees were beautifully calm. Didn't follow us at all!
By the way, my voice recorder makesh me shound like I have a speech impediment. I was more than a little relieved when DH commented - unprompted - that the voice on the recorder didn't shound like me.
