Both hives are queenright and producing brood. Orientations flights have been seen from both hives and bees are bringing in plenty of pollen. So all is well in the apiary?
Not quite. The poly hive bees are laying down stores around the brood frames but nothing else. Although, these bees have been very slow to build up their stores, despite plenty of food they are not producing an excess.
The united hive is so full of bees laying down stores in the brood frames it is possible that the queen will have little space to lay. As we are coming to the end of the honey flow it was decided to put on another super with frames below the queen excluder to allow the queen space to lay.
We checked the super above the queen excluder. The majority of frames have capped honey and those that don’t when shaken did not drip. We will remove all the frames from the super and extract the honey. As the hive has plenty of stores in the brood we don’t believe the bees will suffer over the winter.
Early August is now with us and despite some very hot weather, the bees all seem to be busy going about there business.
Wasps are now starting to be active in the apiary so traps need to be set.
More next blog and where are the queens?