New colony settling in well

2026: CC Bee Blog 9

This morning (15 June) Steve and I found that the new colony had settled well into its new home at Cliffe Castle. The blue queen (who doesn’t have a name yet – we’ll have to have another competition!) is laying over 4 frames and the flying bees had been bringing back nectar and pollen, when the weather was calm enough for them to get out into the parkland.

Lee and I struggled trying to get the frames to fit into the hive last week. Today, Steve and I struggled to get some of them out!  The wooden top bars of some frames seemed too thick to ease into the slots in the side of the box, that hold them in place. This morning, armed with a box plane, Steve managed to shave off some of the wood on some of the frame ends (the lugs) and finally they slid comfortably into the hive.

For Steve to be able to do this, we needed to shake all the bees off each frame that needed attention. We have a wooden box (brood box) to hold the frames when we check the observation hive. It sits on top of a floor, and we shook the bees into this safe place so that Steve could do his bit of woodwork. Despite this disruption, the bees stayed nice and calm but were happy to go back into the hive when we had finished.

Thanks to Steve for his help this morning and thanks to David, my neighbour, who kindly loaned his box plane, that was good and sharp!

Linda