Inspecting between the showers

Desite the rain having returned - the hives needed inspecting, so now armed with our tools, Hannah and Gil returned to the farm. It is a lovely secluded little bit of Pudsey and we do feel very priviledged to be able to come here, which makes the effort of getting ready much more bearable.

The rain was coming in short bursts, but at least it meant that we could at last try out our new umbrella.  

The bees were still busy despite the rain. We started with a quick look in Hive 2 - but from the photos and film we took yesterday, we're really worried about hacking into the clump of bees (with it's hidden queen) and decided to concentrate on Hive 1.

It really is getting to be full of bees in Hive 1 - of course the rain meant that most of the foragers would also have been inside. All of the bars were glued together with propolis - (which is what the knife is for - to prise them apart and detach the comb from the walls)

Despite stopping briefly for a heavy shower, we actually managed to lift out and check over every comb. We took plenty of photographs to look at later, to speed the process up - Bees don't like getting wet or cold, and so time is short. However, they still seem to be relatively calm considering what we're doing to their home.

Here you can see the "top" of the comb - which is separate from the bar - at the opposite end of the hive from the feeder, the combs really overlap the bars at one edge. This makes it really difficult to separate the combs and lift them up safely. However we actually only lost one comb this time - though unfortunately it was mostly 'capped brood' - ie. young about to hatch. Hopefully we managed to prop it up between combs, so they will probably be OK.

And here's another treat, courtesy of our super-snapper Hannah. Two or three new drone bees in the process of hatching !  You can see their eyes peeping out of the cells . . .

Later checks of other photos reveal a lot of larvae, some eggs, and no signs of egg cups, or even verroa (touch wood). However we still haven't definitely identified a Queen.