Overtime

Another late night working. This was taken at 10:00 pm from the beehives.

Another swarm but at least I was able to determine the cause - my incompetence! I had totally underestimated how quickly a colony could build new queen cells .... lots of them and release them all at the same time. Chaos.

Managed yet again to catch the swarm but I have now vowed to never let this happen again. Tomorrow all the hives will be radically inspected and everything looking like a potential queen will be eradicated. What I should, of course, have been doing throughout May. I had always been afraid of not having any potential queens but I now know that they can be produced pretty quickly and the danger of having too many is greater and more damaging that having too few.

Yet again all the essential garden jobs are not getting done. Not sure how long I can get away with saying the nettles and weeds are being left so that the bees have some variety .... especially as the nettles all seem to be in seed now.