What a great find!
Not clear how much headroom there is for supers under the foldback covers.
After you've towed it back up the A835 please send us some more pictures of it ... ;)
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What a great find!
Not clear how much headroom there is for supers under the foldback covers.
After you've towed it back up the A835 please send us some more pictures of it ... ;)
Painful afternoon. Definitely a June gap kicking in and one of the hives was mean. Got more stings in 10 minutes than I’ve had in the last 5 years, this one never got in thankfully.
Attachment 2978
Stop pleeping (Orcadian dialect for complaining) Neils. Your beekeeping is easy compared to this honey harvesting and they aren’t too fussy about how it’s eaten!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/923833...rtical-cliffs/
Hahaha! Pleeping, I like that one
I did a spilt at the start of May from my favorite colony. Made two nucs each with a fine queen cell. Both cells hatched but now one nuc has a laying worker and the other no sign of eggs. I have put a frame of eggs into the second nuc but presumably it is queenless. Will adding eggs prevent the second nuc producing laying workers?? Thank you
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Development of laying workers is slowed by a pheromone from open brood, so your developing eggs/larvae should help.
I wouldn’t give up on your queens just yet. It’s quite common to wait 5 or 6 weeks for a queen to be mated and laying here.
It might be possible that the new queen is not yet in her stride and the egg pattern will sort itself out in a few days time, because l think that has happened with me in the past. If I’m wrong about this someone put me right.
Lovely day here today after two weeks of poor weather, so l’ve united a weak colony and I’ve been moving brood frames around to strengthen a few weak hives. Not a lot of stores in the hives at the moment and three are still awaiting their first supers!
Thanks for the positivity! The first nuc had cells with two eggs and eggs stuck in the side walls and drone larvae, so I fear that a lying worker is inevitable:( however the second one may be as you suggest. Fingers crossed.
Lovely day here too. Bees launching themselves into the sunshine after ten straight days of rain. Great to see
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I'd agree with you. 5-6 weeks not uncommon and I've also found it not entirely impossible that adding a frame of eggs/brood can sometimes be enough to 'kick start' a new queen into laying. I'd suggest that the number of times that I've shoved a frame of eggs in a colony only to find on the next inspection that the queen is in lay is beyond what you'd expect from pure chance.
Also agree that a new queen can often take a little while to settle down into a 'proper' laying pattern and that you'll often find multiple eggs in the cells, and not just at the bottom, when she first comes into a lay. My understanding is that despite multiple eggs a new queen will still basically lay in a standard pattern but laying workers is far more random, you'll find patches of eggs everywhere.
Confirmed six 2019 laying queens today - must have been dashing out for quickies between downpours! Such a relief.
Lucky to have a very later field of rape still in flower, nectar was being piled in today after a few days of rain.