Today was the first sunny day we've had since the bees arrived here at Pudsey, so we made the most of it and 5 of us gathered to check them over.
There seemed to be more activity in Hive 2 today at first, though there were bees around the entrance of both. We were especially interested in seeing the new in-hive-feeder that Steve had made following Simons' instructions.
This allows us to check and top up the levels of sugar-syrup without opening the hive at all. Very important when the weather is as awful as it has been.
The bees started showing a bit more interest in us at this point, and offered a chance to check a few out individually.
The other hive was a bit more worrying - a lot of fresh comb had collapsed off the top bar, and was piled up on the floor of the hive - this needed removing as it would block the rest of the hive. We'd left the comb for a few days to allow the bees to clear it of honey, but it was quite devastating to later find it contained almost fully developed larvae. However the bees had started building more comb from other bars, so hopefully they'll be fine.
To say this was the smaller colony, and they were already producing and raising young in such quantities is fantastic news. Can't wait to see the other hives comb, and of course we are yet to find either of the Queens.
Hannah & Gil later did a bit of shopping, and have bought a plastic planter which can be used as a swarm box, and some more wood and skewers which we are making into another dozen top bars. No luck yet finding another metal funnel though.
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