Warm weather equals busy hive

Blog number 4, 28th April 2025

Steve and I checked the observation hive this morning - and what a change in the weather from last week! Bee-Yonce is going from strength to strength and now laying across 6 frames. As there are only 9 frames in total in our little hive, it is now ¾ full of bees in the making.

When the colony feels short of space and cramped in the hive the bees find it hard to pick up on those special scents produced by the queen. This makes them think it might be time to split into two and find a new home for the queen and half of the colony. This is what we know as swarming.

Today Steve and I removed another frame of stores and put another frame of fresh wax foundation in its place, to help hold them back from swarming for a little longer. The young bees in the colony will be busy producing wax this week, during the warm weather. They will soon have the foundation frame drawn out into a comb for Bee-Yonce to use to lay more eggs and to store the nectar and pollen that the older bees are bringing home from their foraging flights.