We promise not to set up apiaries beside cliffs with lots of cattle innocently wandering about!
Somewhat grateful that the dozens of pictures the photographer took of me kneeling, leaning, standing over bee hives didn't make it to print. I can imagine Kirsty's reaction when the photographer returned with his SD card stuffed with images: 'He looks like *that*?!!"
At the behest of the photographer, Angus, and in some warm sunshine and still air, I lifted the first frames of the season in one colony. Turned out to be a drone layer.
There is one MiniPlus overwintering on that site, 5 frames of bees, three with brood, lots of food and the queen wandering about wondering where to put an egg next. Like a good number of my full-sized poly hives they are likely to be straight into a second box in March sometime at this rate. Some of the poly hives are full boxes of bees right now and the Amm ones mated at our isolated site are the strongest. Just sayin'. They can be as vigorous (and hopefully as productive) as anything from the C lineage as long as they are not inbred. Will post some pictures soon.
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