Today we arrived and inspected the nuc first. This put a downer on the inspection as we knew there was nothing really to find and that we were just looking after them until they died out. That is unless there were enough eggs in Laura ...
Nuc
Weak strength
Quiet temperament
1 brood box - 6 frames
Queenless
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
Actions Taken: Icing sugared the bees (they didn't like it!)
Next, we moved onto Kate. The tension was building as we knew we needed to see eggs or a queen if our interventions were to have been successful ... and guess what ...?
WE SAW EGGS!!!
Kate
Weak strength
'Nervous' temperament
1 brood box - 6 frames
No queen cells. A small number of EGGS! Which means there's a queen in there somewhere!
4 frames of bees
4 frames of stores
2 frames of eggs
1 foundation frame
Some signs of Varroa
Actions Taken: We dusted for icing sugar to combat the Varroa. We considered putting some food on as they have a queen now and hopefully will soon have a brood to look after but decided to leave it until our next inspection to decide whether they needed it or not. Instead, we put in an extra foundation frame for them to draw out for stores if needed.
While it's great news that Kate has eggs and this is a really great step in the right direction, we're not out of the woods yet. It may be that she is a drone laying queen (a queen which lays only male bees) This is no good for the hive as they boys are lazy and do nothing at all except mate with a virgin queen - they can't even feed themselves (I'm saying nothing!) Obviously this is no good for the future of the hive. We will have to wait until next week to know for sure.
The tension was off. What had started out as a sad inspection was now jubilant. We were excited to move onto our star pupil - Laura. And what a beauty she is!
We took the top off and saw that the bees had made their way up into the super (even though Greg had put it on at the wrong orientation, the Dignus!) and had started drawing it out. Then, lo and behold ... EGGS! More eggs! Laura had started laying in the super like the dream queen she is.
Laura
Moderate - Strong strength
Calm temperament
1.5 brood box - 11 + 11 frames
Saw Laura (the beauty!)
Two queen cups (no larvae inside)
14 frames of bees
6 frames of brood (Eggs + capped brood + uncapped brood)
11 frames of stores
8 foundation frames in the super (beginning to be drawn)
Actions taken: Because laura is so strong, with plenty of capped brood and is now starting to lay in the super we took the decision to move one frame of brood to the nuc in an attempt to save it. Hopefully, by next time we inspect, the bees will have started to make queen cups for the new eggs it has and will create a queen from there - we will have to wait and see ...
All in all, we're eggstatic (!) to have Laura so strong, Kate now laying and an opportunity to save the doomed nuc too. Wish us luck and keep your fingers crossed for us.
Comments