The story so far… Emma and I started the year with one hive, headed up by Queen Myrtle. We then bought one colony, were very kindly given another, and split the colony we bought into three as swarm control in May. That makes five hives! Inspecting has become quite different. Although we turn up at 2pm, often we hardly get time for a cup of tea and suddenly it’s 4.30, everyone is leaving and we’re still finishing off our inspections.

Hectic for sure. The good news is, the Bailey comb exchange that seemed to go on forever is very nearly completed in Myrtle’s hive. Looking back at my blog posts, in ‘Exams over – and the Bailey comb exchange begins…‘ we started the Bailey comb exchange on 26th March. They just seemed to draw out the new brood comb very slowly, even though we fed sugar syrup. Also we…