Garden Tales
It’s been a bit dreary these last few days, but things are growing well in the garden. Here are a few photos from around the garden at the weekend.
The blackcurrants are flowering well and should have lots of fruit later in the year. The comfrey looks good. The bluebells are putting on their usual show and the cherry tree blossom was nice this year and the bees enjoyed it while it was out. The chives are about to flower too which the bees will appreciate. Not much is happening in the pond yet, but the honey bees seem to like that as well. They line up along the edge to sip water from it.
Bee Manipulations
Talking of the bees, the single colony that survived the winter was getting pretty big. It had three supers of honey on it too so I decided it was time to try to split it before it started trying to swarm. I know that’s not the conventional way of doing things but we thought it was worth a try. Essentially I created a nuc with the existing queen in it and left her where she was. The flying bees should therefore return to her. The rest of the colony was moved to a hive further down the garden (in the apiary where they should be rather than next to the bedroom window!)
Hopefully, the bees in the new hive will realise they are queenless and will use the eggs they have to raise a new one. I’ll check them next weekend to make sure that’s the case. I’ll also destroy all but one of the queen cells. By this time there shouldn’t be any eggs or larvae that can become queens other than the one queen cell that remains. That should hopefully prevent cast swarms. All being well, the single queen will hatch, go out and mate and come back to the colony so that it can build up over the summer.
I’ll check on the queen that remains n the hive next to the bedroom window as well. This colony has loads of stores and plenty of flying bees so should be able to fend for itself. It also has a laying queen so should build back up quite quickly – unless of course it still decides to swarm. Hopefully, the fact that they are depleted in numbers and have a hive full of foundation to draw out will mean that they have other things to think about. We’ll see!
