Firstly - swarm!
This happened on 9th June. Hive B (the newer one) had started making queen cells after the late May bank holiday, and it was only a matter of time before we missed one and they swarmed. Fortunately, there are a number of apple trees by the ZEST hives, and the swarm didn't travel much more than 20 metres from the hive. Even better, they settled on a single thin branch, at shoulder height. Probably the easiest swarm to collect, which is lucky since it was my first! Gerry was on hand to help, and we transferred it - via a Flexi-bucket - to a nucleus that I'd brought with me for the purpose of housing the bees temporarily:
Once the roof was on, they seemed pretty content:
In Hive A, the bees had been blowing hot and cold over whether to swarm or not. We spent July trying to do swarm control - which worked, in that a swarm was avoided. The bees made a queen cell towards the end of July which we isolated (with bees and stores) into a separate end of the hive by means of a divider board. Although we haven't seen the emerged queen yet, we were happy to see eggs last weekend:
And, because it's harvest time, I was pleased to be presented yesterday with two jars of ZEST hive honey!
So, that brings things pretty-much up-to-date with the ZEST hive - next time, I should have a little news about my own.
