Colony progress

[Trog]

I enjoyed a leisurely inspection today and found all the colonies progressing well. Looking back, they're about a week behind last year's efforts but I see from my notes I was helping them along with syrup this time last year as they had built up early but then the weather had turned miserable. One colony was so large I gave them an extra brood box. If they fill it I'll split them, or maybe just use it to make up some nucs. All the girls were in a good mood and the only use for the smoker was to get them out of the way when they were crowding round the tops of the frames. Saw all my (unmarked) queens and as ever complimented them on their good looks!

[Neils]

A mixed bag with mine at the moment.
One colony swarmed before I did a first inspection, but it's a massive colony and I'll know for next time we have a spring like this one I'll leave them another week before I inspect again, but I will go down and add another super as they were chock full of stores anywhere there wasn't brood last week. I gave them a super of comb them and they'll get a super of frames this time around.

The supersedure colony I've not looked at this week. I know the queens were due to emerge last weekend so I'll give them another week before I disturb them. I'm hoping that with the weather as it is and the number of drones around that they'll get to it sooner rather than later.

The Drone layer I did have a quick peek at. They're in the balance at the moment but have a donor frame of brood from last week to hopefully keep them ticking over. They've not made queen cells on it, so I'm hoping that's a good sign for the Virgin queen I ran in last week.

The first of the two swarms has been hived and dosed with OA. We did notice that after 72 hours there's still no brood despite the nuc being full of drawn comb. We'll leave them for a week and see how they get on.

[Adam]

From my limited experience its 4 - 5 days for eggs to be laid - and I usually put swarms on foundation as they draw it so well. I wonder if the Oxalic Acid puts the queen off lay for a wee while.

[Hoomin_erra]

I have a colony covering 2 frames at the moment, and starting to get full, but they refuse to draw out the other frames to expand out.

Anyone got any tips on encouraging the bees to draw out foundation?

Oh, and they also refuse to go into the supers.

[Jimbo]

I would take off the super at the moment and replace with a contact feeder with a week sugar solution