Today required an artificial swarm to be undertaken at Bosavern Farm. The strongest hive, on four boxes already, decided to start swarm preparations.
Nikki kindly assisted and together we searched for the queen. At times like this I bemoan my decision not to mark queens. The weather was poor, the time late in the afternoon, hence almost the whole colony was crawling around the hive. We do not have a queen excluder in use on this hive, so the queen could be anywhere!
On the 45th frame of 48 inspected, I heard a squeal. My eagled eyed assistant had spotted her majesty - yay!
We split the colony into a poly nuc, which will hopefully develop into a nice colony for Nikki to populate her first hive, a Smith hive, which she won in the recent WCBKA raffle. (thanks to Dave MacIntosh for the kind donation of the prize)
Nikki kindly assisted and together we searched for the queen. At times like this I bemoan my decision not to mark queens. The weather was poor, the time late in the afternoon, hence almost the whole colony was crawling around the hive. We do not have a queen excluder in use on this hive, so the queen could be anywhere!
On the 45th frame of 48 inspected, I heard a squeal. My eagled eyed assistant had spotted her majesty - yay!
We split the colony into a poly nuc, which will hopefully develop into a nice colony for Nikki to populate her first hive, a Smith hive, which she won in the recent WCBKA raffle. (thanks to Dave MacIntosh for the kind donation of the prize)
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