What's Been Happening in the ZEST Hive?

A couple of months have passed since Dorothy's return, and things have been mostly quiet in the Beechen Bees apiary (although I will have some news shortly...)  So, I thought I'd give you all an update on things in the ZEST hive over in Bathwick.

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.