July: Meanwhile back on the allotment

So its been four weeks since we put the swarm on the allotment...time to go and have a really good look at how well that hive is getting on...

We would really have liked to see some, even just a little bit, of honey coming into the supers by now...

But there wasn't a drop to be found...which is quite frustrating as the nearby hives have honey ready to harvest...

And really ...for 6pm on a sunny day ...there are not a lot of bees in this hive...

and this might be the reason why...there is simply no worker brood...

All those bubbly looking sealed cells are drone brood and a hive full of boys won't last long....looking at Brunehild ( what other name could we give a queen living in a Beehaus?) you wouldn't really think anything was wrong with her, she certainly runs fast enough...

But after some fairly intense debate and VERY close inspection...we've decided that she is a drone layer...

Which rather begs the question......how have all these bees managed to make a queen cell?

And if there is a viable queen in there...is there enough time left this summer for her to turn this colony round?

May: Bee keeping experiment

Did you know that in a quiet corner of an Epsom allotment there is a small experiment in bee keeping under way?

We've been given a Beehaus style bee hive and its fair to say we haven't seen anything quite like it before...

After a bit of head scratching we decided there was nothing else for it  - we simply had to put some bees in it and see how they got on...

First to load the brood area with some deep frames...

Then gently encouraging a swarm out of its box...

The plastic queen excluder confused us for a short time, which way round do you think it should go?

 




At least the first couple of workers venturing up the foundation poked their heads through it happily enough...

We loaded the supers with a few frames of stores...

 




and then popped the lid back on.  The bees seem to be quite happy using the front door....despite the name plate...