After the disappointment of Wednesdays inspection, I followed the advice I'd been given by various kind souls. Don't panic, leave it for a few days and it'll probably sort itself. So I shut up the hive on Wednesday and ignored it until this evening. What do know, all is not lost after all.
Popped in today, was only going to take off the super frames (still not sure what I was thinking), replace the crown board and feeder and maybe have a quick look. After a few puffs of bee tobacco they went straight down, no fuss no bother. I noticed some young ones about so thought I'd check the state of the empty cells and there they were, fresh eggs, perfectly placed dead centre in the empty and tidily cleaned out cells. So my queen is still there. Read up on @beesinfrance's blog and my bee bible today about laying workers so fairly certain it is the queen and not the workers. So that's good news but why aren't they drawing put the empty frames to make more space for her to lay? Still got 6 virtually untouched frames in the brood box so what's their problem? Plenty of feed and forage, they seem content enough, rather placid in fact, I can only assume that they just don't like the foundation wax in the frames. When I had a closer look at the ones they had drawn and the ones they haven't it dawned on me that the foundation in the untouched frames has larger than normal cell print on it so is in fact drone foundation.This may explain why they are ignoring it, I'll swap these frames for some fresh and keep my fingers crossed that this will kick them into action. Time is marching on and we need to build up the size of the colony for it to have a chance of surviving the winter let alone giving me some honey which is looking extremely unlikely at this juncture. On another matter, the brood box is supposed to be 11 frames, again, not a clue what I was thinking. Am coming to the conclusion that this blog is outing me as a complete idiot! I may have to stop posting all my silly mistakes just to keep some level of respectibility!
Update - Having this morning swapped the offending frames out, I will leave them bee for a while and keep my fingers crossed that they'll get on with it. Next time I go in I will find that queen or possibly die trying!
Dont worry about always seeing the queen, there's really no need, as long as you have eggs / larvae / capped brood, then you know she's in there somewhere!
ReplyDeleteWe had a colony last year that didnt move onto more than 5 frames, and they came through the harshest winter in many a year with no problem, the queens know what they are doing, tho if they dont have a brood box and super full of honey by the end of the season, then you may need to feed them (which is what we did, with homemade fondant)
And there's no such thing as a mistake, just a learning opportunity, so dont fret, just learn from what you are doing, see how the bees respond and listen to their needs!
Thanks again for your kind and encouraging words. Let's hope that mine make it through the winter with a bit of TLC as well, am sure they will, I'm like a mother hen with them but with only the single colony for the moment I don't want to balls it up :-)
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