So I managed to keep Greg away from the apiary for a whole week! (Medal required.) Unfortunately, he found evidence to say that we should check on the newly hatched queen after a week "just to make sure". I'm not sure entirely what he hoped to see but anyway, today we dutifully trotted down to the apiary to do a general inspection.
Nuc
Weak strength
Quiet temperament
1 brood box - 6 frames
No queen, 1 queen cell (DECEASED)
3 frames of bees
3 frames of stores
4 foundation frames
Saw signs of varroa
No need to feed as sugar syrup was still there
Now we know that the queen cell in this nuc has not developed or emerged we opened it up as sometimes the queen can emerge and the bees can seal the cell back up but unfortunately this wasn't the case; the queen had died.
Actions taken = We must treat them for varroa next time! At this point, there is nothing we can really do to save them, especially while they have varroa. Its future depends entirely on the strength of Laura (more about this later). A positive for the nuc is that it still has lots of stores and the bees haven't really been using the feeder, instead preferring to forage for themselves. This shows that they have the potential to be an effective colony.
Laura
Strong-moderate strength
Calm temperament
1.5 brood box - 11 + 11 frames
Didn't see the queen again, which has caused some consternation
Two queen cups (no larvae inside)
11 frames of bees
6 frames of brood (Eggs + capped brood + uncapped brood)
6 frames of stores
3 foundation frames (beginning to be drawn and they look like they may soon start on the super)
Mostly uniform laying pattern (she's trying to lay where she can find a space!)
Again, there doesn't seem to be as many eggs as we would like to see but this may be just because there is so much capped and emerging brood at the moment and they haven't really moved on to drawing the comb in the super yet - it might be a bit late in the season for them to do that - we'll see.
Actions taken = N/A
We did consider taking some eggs from Laura and putting them in the nuc to try and get them to produce another queen cell but Laura is our priority to build up ready for winter. As she doesn't have as many eggs as we'd like, we've decided not do this at the moment. We want her to be really strong before we risk taking any eggs from her. This may cause the nuc to fail and we can't re-introduce the nuc to the colony as they'll kill the 'nuc bees'.
We think we'll just have to leave the nuc for the moment and see if there are any other opportunities that present themselves to save it. At the moment what will happen is that, as the bees get old they will die out, drunk on the sugar water we've left behind, so it's not a terrible way to go. This may take place four weeks from now unless we figure something out in the meantime ... it was a risk we had to take to try and requeen Kate.
Kate
Weak strength
Fairly calm temperament
1 brood box - 6 frames
1 queen cell - HATCHED - still no eggs (IT'S TOO EARLY GREG!)
3 frames of bees
5 frames of stores
1 foundation frame
Some signs of Varroa (Greg forgot the icing sugar, the Dignus! But has just promised me he'll put it out in the car as soon as we've finished writing up our observations - you are my witness!)
Actions taken = We just have to wait to see if the emerged queen successfully mates and starts laying eggs. We'll check them again in a week, armed with icing sugar and if there still aren't any eggs we'll have to think again. It'll be back to the drawing board but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
P.S This just in from Greg ...
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