First Inspection of the Year

Weather and work conspired against us to prevent inspection of the G Bees for the whole of March and in to April.

 

With an early nectar source nearby from willow trees and oil seed rape fields, we wanted  to offer the G Bees a new deep brood box so they could move in to it with the support of that strong nectar flow so on a still but chilly day in early March, we removed untouched fondant (food supplied to ensure they wouldn't starve late in Winter) and put the new deep brood chamber on the hive with a container of syrup on top, keeping disturbance to a minimum.

Bees flying in early Spring

 

 

Weeks passed.  It was cold; it was sunny and windy; there were some beautiful days - but only when we were at work.  Finally, last weekend we determined at least to remove the supers that had been underneath the brood chambers since last Autumn and to give the G Bees a clean floor without inspecting individual frames in the brood chambers due to the brisk wind.

 

By the time we got our gear together, the wind had dropped.  I couldn't lift the two brood chambers at the same time, so we took off the new deep brood chamber which was really quite heavy, then set aside the old brood chamber.  On top of this we observed huge white grubs & wondered what they were.  We weren't expecting Queen cells so early in the season and all the books show Queen cells hanging downwards from the sides or bottom of frames.  These larvae were in cells on the top of frames.

Continuing we reassembled the hive with a new floor putting everything back including one super of stores and an empty super to give them some more space - there are a lot of G Bees.

 

Reflecting later we realised the white grubs had been Queen larvae and most probably their cells were hanging down from frames in the deep brood chamber, becoming unattached when I lifted that off.   Not only that, on the mesh of the old floor we found the body of a large, light coloured Queen - the magical Queen G who I didn't see once last year. 

 

This means we have a very large colony who have "lost" an old Queen and who are making Queen cells.  Ah!   We were certain from the way they behaved that there must be a Queen in the colony but there is no doubt, they are preparing to swarm!  To be continued......soon.