New Home

While out wandering in the week with the children it was lovely to see lots of bees foraging on plants along the road. Gives me hope that they are still strong and not as weak as the media makes out.

Foraging bee seen in Victoria Avenue, Southend-on-sea

Yesterday (Wednesday) I searched high and low for our smoker so we could transfer the bees to their new home. Alas, it was not to be found. Feeling brave I opened the temporary brood box up but the amount of bees in there made it impossible for me to safely move them to the hive.

Thankfully my husband was able to borrow a smoker from his work.

Temporary home being smoked

Today I went down with the borrowed smoker to move the bees. It was much more successful this time and they seem to be very nice bees, despite the fact I got stung.

I transferred the frames into their permanent home (see below) gave the box a shake to get the majority of the bees in the hive and left the rest next to it to go into the hive before dark. A sugar syrup solution was given to them to help them draw out the new foundation.

National Hive; permanent home

Although a thorough inspection wasn't done because I didn't want to disrupt the bees any further than I already had, I did notice that there was at least one full frame of stores and several brood frames. There were also a few play cups (false queen cells), however a proper inspection will be done in a few days once they have settled, to check for the queen and look at any queen cells.

We have had the bees less than a week, so the hope is that even if there are queen cells in the hive they won't yet be ready to emerge so we should still have time before they swarm. In addition by putting them in the hive they will have additional space so should help quell the urge to swarm.