Animal Fun Day 27th June 2010

Today was the first time we have opened the apiary to the public.  We had a stall in the main arena and were due to open the apiary to the public at 1045 1330 and 1445.  The fun day was slow to start and no one turned up for the first session at quarter to eleven.  However one man turned up at half past and was so interested that I took him down to the apary on his own for a look. we did not open any hives on this visit.  At the half past one session we had 6 people and so I opened hives 2 and 4.

Hive 2 is doing OK but nothing special.  I removed the super as it is not being drawn and the bees do not need it at the moment. They have a couple of frames to draw in the brood box.  The queen is laying and there was eggs, larvae and capped brood in the hive.

Hive 4 , I combined both sides into one colony.  The green side had no queen and was just getting weaker.  the Blue side has a laying queen and 2 and a bit frames of brood.

At the quarter to three opening we had half a dozen adults and even more children.  On this visit I opened hives 3 and 5.  Hive 1 was not being opened due to their temper last week and that they are superceding their queen.

Hive 3 is nearly dead.  It has no queen and is dying out.  I have decided not to try requeening as it is too weak.  I will gradually move hive 5 into its place.

Hive 5 is bursting at the seams.  It was in urgent need of more space so the super from hive 2 was added and the queen excluder after Judith had sat and cleaned all the brace comb off it.  There are 8 frames of brood and there is no spare space.  Hopefully they will move up into the super very quickly.

We sold a small amount of honey, but also had a number of people enquire about beekeeping courses for the spring.  All in all a good day with a reasonable amount of interest and quite a number of leaflets distributed.