This was a bit of a “Fluid” hive inspection. I wanted to have a look at all the bees and make sure things were OK as well as change the batteries in 4 of the hive hearts. These batteries that should last for a year have managed 6 months. I also gave the area a bit of a strim.
Inspection
Looked into Blue wood, light blue wood, purple wood and red poly. All were doing great. Didn’t see a queen in any of them though.
Light Blue Wood
Light blue wood had a couple of queen cells. I couldn’t see the queen. She was clipped so would not have been able to make it far. There were loads of bees which I would have expected regardless of swarming. I left one QC just in case they had swarmed and the queen was no longer there.
Blue Wood
Blue wood had a load of brood. I couldn’t see the queen. Loads of stores, and were beginning to fill the supers above.
Strimming
So I noticed in the inspections that there were a lot of ants. The ants should not be getting up into the hives as the platform is protected against ants with a rubber cap. However, if there is grass growing under the hives and creating bridges then the ants can make it onto the platform. The solution to this is to strim all the tall grass and weeds down and away so that there is no chance of ants freely wandering up onto the platform again.
Now. Any beekeeper will tell you that this is a really bad idea and that any loud noise near the hives will turn your lovely friendly bees into Psycho killers. My bees however were pretty chilled. I warmed the trimmer up before I entered so that it would start easily. Obviously suited up and worked as quickly as I could so as to minimise the length of time that there was noise. I do this every year and they are pretty chilled out. the result was a nice clean area with no long stalks of grass for the ants to climb into the hives.
