gavin

Took advantage of the warmest March day in Scotland and I've been through all of mine now. No drone layers, none queenless. One has lots of brood (7-8 frames) and when that lot hatches there will be no room at all in the box. Time for a second brood box for that one. There are three with 4-5 frames of brood and the other two are a bit weaker still with 2-3 frames and half a box of bees. None are borderline survivors and all look like they will flourish this spring. The big one is the most mixed-looking, rather like its parent. Now have some samples from them so I have no excuse for not doing some morphometry. Also saw a beginner's colony and that one also has about 8 frames of mostly sealed worker brood, mid-summer strength rather than March strength. Another colony needing more boxes this week.

The two that were blown off their stands and left overnight upside down with clusters exposed after a December gale are the weakest two, but doing fine. One was weak anyway so I'm pleased that the experience still left it viable.