Steady progress

Temperature: 23C
Weather: Windy, cloudy
Stings: None

It looks like everything is working out. Brood frames are being drawn and stores are being laid down. The bees have now got about five brood frames of stores prepared - though these are spread across more frames than that. I did see a couple of queen cups but neither was polished or had an egg in it. The bees seemed pretty happy though I didn't see any eggs.

Even better they are starting to draw out the brood frames in the upper brood box. Not all of them but two or three are being heavily worked. Fingers crossed that they keep it up.

This weekend I put Porter bee escapes on the crown board between the upper brood box and super. Over the next week or so that should remove the bees from that super and get them working the brood frames. Most, if not all, of the frames in the super are full of honey. A pretty good crop by the looks of it.

I went through the bottom brood box just to see what was happening and there is still loads of capped brood to emerge. About three or four frames of it. I did have a minor scare as there was one frame that had no brood/eggs or anything on it. Of course, it was the first one I looked at and I wondered if I had trapped the queen in the upper brood box. I hadn't as a look through the upper box showed only stores. I think it was a case, that I've seen before, of the queen just not getting round to that frame. Sometimes they won't get past another frame and I think the one next to it had lots of stores. I swapped them around so she can get at it much more easily.

I'll check them again on Wednesday to see how the evacuation is going. I should be able to take the super off next weekend and plan the extraction soon after. I also need another flagstone so I can start to put more of my equipment there. It's generally better to have it to hand.

I also stated my varroa checking regime by swapping their old floor for a mesh one. I'll take it out next week to see how many mites are on it and how much treatment I have to do. The colony is very strong but I've been caught out by that before.