One of our members contacted us to ask if we could help in the removal of a couple of colonies of bees that hadn’t been opened for about 2-3 years. The beekeeper had sadly become allergic to bee venom.
Jane and Nathaniel went to take a look a couple of weeks ago. One colony was long dead & when they finally got into the second colony, the bees were calm & apart from a bit of sac brood surprisingly healthy. (Lots of wax moth, spiders & dirty comb)
Yesterday was phase 2.The colony & kit were moved to Winterborne Gardens. The aim is to demo a Bailey comb change in the spring & move them into standard national boxes. Assuming the queen has survived the move she might be good for breeding as the colony is calm & varroa tolerant (untreated for 3 years).
Toby has donated all his kit: feeders, supers, smoker, suit, 2 complete hives to the association- it needs lots of cleaning & maintenance but it a good addition to our kit.
Hopefully there will be fewer swarms in Bearwood now!!