Having given the second colony two days to get used to my garden I popped them into their new hive, adding adapters to the national frames as I inserted them. Whilst doing this I saw the queen. She was pretty huge and had a large splot of blue paint on her back to show she was from 2010. I also saw eggs and both capped an uncapped brood.
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| Blue queen |
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After putting the frames into the new hive there were still a lot of bees clinging to the crownboard that had been on the nuc and in the box the frames had been in. I placed these outside the hive entrance so the bees could climb out onto the landing board and walk into the hive. I'd read about them doing that but seeing it happen was something else.
I popped on a crownboard, then a contact feeder I'd made by punching holes in an ice cream tub lid. Added the second National deep as an eke and my second lid then left them to it. Whilst I was there I also checked out Hive1. I still couldn't see that midget queen anywhere but there was plenty of eggs and brood in the comb.
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| Bees, eggs, uncapped brood, capped brood |
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