To Marion: It may just be the weather, having looked at the pressure chart for today and yesterday. We were caught out by an un-forecast thunderstorm 2 hours after a not particularly enjoyable inspection a few weeks ago and more recently one colony was nervous the day before the sort of weather our area is experiencing today. They were AMMs and normally delightful to deal with but I picked up two stings within seconds of opening up. By contrast, the huge colony that normally has to be treated with great respect was pretty docile!

Are the new bees nearly filling the brood box? If so I'd super up with perhaps unwired foundation to see if they can give you a heather crop. Or, if you have some ready-drawn wired foundation, you can always scrape out any heather honey and sieve it!