Box clever

Temperature: 18C

Weather: Warm, windy

Stings: None

I took a bit of time with the bees today to see how their winter preparation is going. They were in two brood boxes but I realised that having them so spread out was only going to mean their stores were spread very thinly. So, I've got them consolidating into one brood box so they can get all their stores into the place where they will be spending the winter. I saw lots of bees coming in bringing in pollen so they are obviously getting ready.

I did check through the brood box below and there are only a few frames with capped brood and larvae on them. I was a bit worried that there were so few but they are at least there so with the consolidation they should be able to build up a bit quicker.Image via Wikipedia

The final thing I did was to put on the varroa treatment. Earlier in the year I saw a few bees with bent wings but it was at the height of the season so the colony could carry those losses. Soon after I did the swarm preparation and that should have seen off quite a few of the mites. I'll keep an eye on them and if they need feeding will give them some syrup or feed them their own honey.

The upside of having bees from two colonies is all the spare and clean drawn comb I have. That will make things easier next year as the bees will not have to build up from zero early in the year.