Winter Is Coming (yes, really)

An update on where we are in each of the hives:

The nucleus:  The new queen is laying well.  I'm hopefully going to name her formally next week (watch this space!)

Hive #2:  No idea - I'm still leaving it alone while the new queen "gets jiggy" with the drones (I have a post coming up about that).

Miriam's hive:  When I opened up and started going through the frames, I could see that they were still making queen cells - in fact, they were simply rebuilding the ones that I'd cut out last week in exactly the same places on the frames.  But, interestingly, they were empty - no eggs in any of them.  Or so I thought, until I got to frame number 6.  I found an open queen cell (larva around 5 days old) and removed it.  Then, I saw this:

That is a capped queen cell.  But notice the hole in the side, near the top.  After capping the cell (which would normally be the precursor to swarming) the bees seem to have changed their minds, and nibbled a hole in the side of the cell.  The larva was still inside, but it was only a matter of time before the bees would pull her out and kill her.  This can only mean one thing - the swarm season is officially over, and the bees are going to stop making queen cells until the spring.  They have declared it:  Winter Is Coming.

OK, that may seem crazy - it's July, the sun is finally (mostly) shining, and the schools have only just broken up.  Isn't it the start of summer?  Not in bee world.  From this point on, they have one single focus - build up stores of honey, make sure there are plenty of bees, and prepare to bed down for the long, cold days of winter.  A beehive needs around 40 lbs of honey (that's around 20 kg in pre-brexit money) to get it through the winter, and right now is their prime opportunity to collect it.

So, how are Miriam's bees doing?  Fantastically well, actually.  I keep 10 frames back for them to use as winter stores (which, at around 1.5 lbs per frame means 15 lbs of honey).  And they will store another 25 lbs in the brood box during September.  So, their 40 lbs for winter is already covered - any surplus goes to the beekeeper!  How's that looking?  Well, I have 20 frames that all look like this:

So, as long as they keep at it and we don't have a spell of wet or cold weather, I could be looking at over 30 lbs of honey.  Happy days...