HIve inposection

Since the last inspection I took a good friend's advice and left the bees alone to "get on with things" for over 2 weeks. The weather last week was very poor. We had regular down pours. Some part of the country got a whole month's worth of rain in just 24 hours.

My son was very excited so my wife put a veil and a big coat over him and asked him to stand a little distance away and watch. He is asking for a proper bee suit.

On opening the hive I saw that none of the foundation frames in the super, which I added 2 week's ago, have been worked on. I did expect some sign of these foundations being drawn. Moving on to the brood box the picture was very different. All but two frames are now fully drawn. Frame 2 is half drawn and already has some honey. That leaves frame 1 still waiting for the bees to work on. The next few frames are all full of honey, but there are no obvious signs of brood cells. Then came frame 7  which has quite a few sealed brood cells. The following three frames also have plenty of brood.  I saw one bee emerging and also some grubs. But no sign of the queen this time round. There are a few drone cells. My eyesight is not the best and I am still finding it difficult to see any eggs. I shall properly get a more experienced keeper to come and have a look at my hive just to make sure things are as they should be.

Without doubt there will be no honey for me this year and am happy to let the colony to build itself up for the rest of the season.