Since I last wrote I've rallied over the embarrassment and disappointment of my first sting and we made our way down to our apiary today for our first inspection.
We arrived got ourselves ready and opened up Laura first ...
The colony seemed pretty content and happy and we were happy with how it's progressing - lots of stores and building up the foundations.
Laura
Moderate strength
Calm temperament
1 brood box - 11 frames
Saw the queen
One or two queen cells but were only queen cups (no larvae inside)
4 frames of brood (Eggs + capped brood + uncapped brood)
Mostly uniform laying pattern
Good population for size
8 frames of bees
3 frames of stores
4 foundation frames
Some frames in poor condition - may need to change (spring)
No signs of disease
Feeding well, the queen seemed content
That being said, once we moved onto Kate it was a slightly different story. We kept an eye out for the queen but couldn't see her (again) and we were slightly distracted by the number of queen cells we saw. We started pushing these down until we realised there was a possibility that the colony might be queenless and so left a few just in case they were needed.
We also noticed some chalkbrood which is a disease but is only a problem if the colony remains queenless. (Chalkbrood is a fungal infection which drys out and mummifies the brood but only becomes a problem if the queen isn't healthy)
Kate
Moderate Strength
Calm but busy temperament
1 brood box - 11 frames
Didn't see the queen - no queen suspected!
Lots of queen cells (14 approx - got rid of about half) with larvae inside (could signify queenlessness)
7 frames of bees
4 frames of brood (capped brood + uncapped brood but no eggs!)
Mostly uniform laying pattern
Good population for size
4 frames of stores
3 foundation frames
Feeding well, no queen, definite chalkbrood
Need to inspect again in approx 3 days (weather depending. hopefully mentor will be in touch and will help us inspect for queenlessness)
Greg is currently on the phone with our mentor now so we'll see what he has to say. We suspect that we should just let the queen cells run their course, ie. allow a new queen to emerge naturally. The chances of them swarming are slim as the colony is small and queenless and it's usually the old queen that swarms. That being said, we'll keep a close eye on them until further notice.
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