Not a good days bee keeping. Two of the hives have either gone queenless or the queens have gone off lay. By the fractious nature of the bees I would guess queenless.
Started with Hive 2. Super not drawn, but there are still 3 brood frames to draw so I am not worried, in fact there is no use the super being on this hive at the moment. Might take it off next week and give it to hive 1. Queen marked Blue. She was found on underside of the queen excluder, shows you must always check the queen excluder.
Next was Hive 4. This one is divided into two nucs. Green side- Very weak no sign of a queen.
Blue side – Not very strong, only a small patch of one frame with brood. I must merge these colonies soon.
I then moved to Hive 1. Definitely not nice today. Several dozen bees batting my veil and followed me out of the apiary. Appears queenless, but has 2 queen cells. Need to leave them alone for a couple of weeks. Super nearly full, will need a new one next week, I will probably move the one fron hive 2.
Last hive was Hive 3. Small amount of capped brood. No eggs or larvae. What happened to the queen? Did she swarm or was she not properly mated. She is not likely to have swarmed as she was laying in the hive 10 days ago! This is a disapointment as I was about ready to move these bees onto a new bee keeper.
Due to the fact that the bees from Hive 1 were still having a go, I decided not to look at hive 5. They had a lot of wax to draw last week and will be OK until next week.
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