JULY 2002
July turned out to be a reasonably quiet month for us.
Having returned from our holiday in Wales Paul inspected the Flaxton bees
to find that both hives must have swarmed because the previously very
aggressive bees were now quiet and docile with only a few bees still flying
from them. Open queen cells showed that they must certainly have swarmed.
He removed the extra Supers that we'd added for insurance against swarming
while we'd been on holiday. They would be more useful on the hives at
York. Back home John and Paul inspected our apiary in the garden.
Hives 1 and 3 seem to be doing well so the extra supers were put on them.
Hive 2 in its little swarm box also seems now to have a working queen.
We must soon transfer this new colony into a full size hive box.
By the end of July we had removed over 20 full frames of capped honey
and placed more frames of wax foundation in the supers.
No more frames of fresh wax will now be added to any of the hives this
year because even although it is only July it is hard to believe there
are only 4 more weeks of real production time left before we start preparing
for Winter!
On Monday, 29th July Paul finally transfered the new Hive 2 colony back
into a proper box. We must remember to feed this hive and our other two
swarms well to build up their food stores before Winter.