I've finally managed to get caught up with my blog posting with this post. 10 days ago me and Steph did an inspection, however this time she was really brave and did most of it. In fact the only things I did were light the smoker, open the hive, remove the first frame and any heavy lifting. She enjoyed it so much that she has agreed that a hive in our back garden is a strong possibility but is likely to be a top bar hive; a top bar hive would mean less heavy lifting and looks a lot nicer than just a wooden box not to mention a top bar hive will be cheaper!
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| Steph all suited up |
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| The smoker ready to go |
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| If you look almost in the centre there is a Bee emerging from it's cell! |
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| Steph looking very professionally |
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| Queen Bee-atrix and plenty of brood |
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| This is the frame nearest the entrance, I think they put the holes there for extra ventilation |
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| Beekeepers together! |
I also took the debris from the varroa board and later that day counted the mites. I found 37 mites and that was over 14 days. Using the calculator on the Beebase website I got the following result:
Average Daily Mite Fall = 2.6 varroa mites
Estimated number of adult varroa mites in the colony = 110Treatment is recommended in about 9 month(s) time (counting from day of first monitoring).
Although the results are again fairly low I intend to treat the hive as soon as I've removed the honey, which hopefully will be next Monday or Tuesday. I will then contact my local Beekeeping club who offer a extractor for hire. With any luck I should have some honey in the next few weeks.
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