The hives are a-buzz!

Popped down to help Steve check the hives today as Phil has sadly done his back quite badly and isn’t able to come down. 

I was on secretary duty to record how the hive was working. Carefully,  Steve dismantled the hive, checking for brood frames (new eggs and larvae kept here!). There were significantly more than last week, with the smaller hive comfortably doubling in size in the last week. 

The hive on Phil’s plot is working on the first super box and filling in with honey! Steve is hoping they will fill another 2 supers so that we can harvest a full super (containing 12 frames of honey), leaving two full ones for the bees to eat over the winter. Steve reckons that one full super of honey could have 70lbs of honey in! 

The bees are so busy building comb to fill with honey they have even built onto the Queen excluder! Steve had to scrape it off to clear the excluder – the scrap comb was put into a bucket and removed from the vicinity of the hive. 

Steve has also spent the day building some new hives – he has 4 to make including over 400 frames ready for honey! I am hoping that we could get one so we can have our own bees…

Steve is away next week and if Phil’s back is still playing up, Steve has said I will have to do it!