08/09/04

Hive L: A super of about 25% full frames was removed. The brood was inspected and the queen located. There are good stores of honey in the brood frames. One tray of Apiguard was placed on top of the brood chamber and it was closed up for two weeks.

Hive R: About 6 frames of honey were collected from the three supers.
This colony is still queenless and the bees a little unhappy. With a reduced colony there had probably been some robbing as there was no store in the brood chamber. I decided to merge this colony with Hive W.

Hive W: Another 2-3 frames of honey were removed. The colony was calm and some brood observed. The honey stores were low so will need feeding. One Apiguard tray was added.
The brood chamber from Hive R was placed on top of newspaper to merge the colonies to over-winter. Two supers of almost empty frames were placed on top to be cleaned up.

14 lbs (6.35 kg) of honey were extracted (II). 246 lbs (112 kg) altogether! A bumper year.