Inspection

Another inspection, and again I'm quite pleased with how the bees seem to be doing. In both hives the Apiguard was going down well, with less than half remaining. It seems then that I'll pop in the second treatment 2 weeks after the first. There seems to have been some debate about the correct timing of this. I've heard it said that the two treatments should be 3 weeks apart to cover 2 full brood cycles. However, with both the instructions on the box and my experienced colleagues at Ealing saying 2 weeks I'm more inclined to follow this, especially since the bees are consuming it so fast that by leaving it longer there would be a period in the middle with no Apiguard in the hive at all. I checked the varroa floors, and indeed there were lots of dead, red mites so it seems the Apiguard is having an effect.

So the colonies looked well. Eggs and larvae were present in both, though in hive2 the stores again looked low. I actually took 2 half-filled super-frames of stores from hive1 and put these in hive2 since I am a little concerned, and hive1 seems to have an excess since I did not take off much when I harvested the honey. In general such mixing of kit between hives is not to be recommended for disease prevention reasons, but since the hives are so closely sited anyway I've decided to allow it in this case. I again saw the queen in hive1, with the dodgily applied green splodge I'd given her previously.

I'm procrastinating on moving the hives out to Gerrards Cross, but I'll have to get cracking in the next week since I want them settled by Autumn. In preparation, I covered the holes in the crown-boards with plastic mesh which I pinned down. That way I can transport them with the roofs off the hives and the bees can't get out: I'll be putting big straps around the hives top-to-bottom, and if the roofs were still on those straps would not be quite secure due to the way the roofs overhang.