Readers of last week's post will recall that Miriam (along with the rest of her colony) has now gone off to live at the other end of St Mark's Road, in the Southcot Burial Ground near the bottom of Lyncombe Hill. The good news is that the colony has now been moved to a full-size hive, and appear to be doing very well.
While Jack, Sarah and I were moving Miriam last week, we got chatting about their other colony, which is not doing so well. In fact, it's been queenless for several weeks - which means the colony population is declining. What they really need is some more adult bees, and also some more eggs with which they can raise a new queen. Unfortunately, I'd already burned three frames of eggs and brood earlier in the day, which is a shame as that would have been just what the bees needed to get back going again.
Nevertheless, I had another three frames to change on Friday, so we agreed to meet at Friday lunchtime for Sarah and Jack to collect the frames. Everything went pretty-much according to plan - we went through each colony, found the queen, isolated the frame she was on, and then selected one of the old frames of brood and eggs. Then we put the queen and her frame back, along with a fresh frame, and shook the bees off the old frame, which we then kept aside.
One we'd done that three times, there were three frames of capped brood and eggs, all ready to go. We took them to Jack and Sarah's hive over at the other end of the road, opened up and put them in the middle, where it will hopefully be warmest. Next week, we'll see if the numbers have increased - and also see if the bees have made any queen cells.
Back in my own hives, the frames are getting heavy with honey - and my new jars have been delivered. It may be time to take the honey off next week - stay tuned...!
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