The three hives I brought through the winter are now five and for me that’s one too many! So I have a decision to make during my next inspection. I either join two hives together and give the queen and a couple of frames with brood, stores and nurse bees to a friend in need of honeybees or I just give a whole colony of bees to a friend. A lot depends on what’s occurring in the other four hives.

How will I make my decision? It will be based on the strength of the colonies. If I have two weak hives then they’ll be united and one of the queens, as I said above will be given to a friend of mine along with some brood and nurse bees as it’s better to have one strong hive than two weak ones. One strong hive will produce more honey and will be better to take through the coming winter. If, however they are all strong, then I don’t want to over-crowd them so I’ll give the smallest colony to my friend.

As you can see in the picture above, nothing in the bee world is straight forward. I started the year with Hives 1, 2 and 3 all positioned in order and painted their own colours then they end up in any old order with each others supers on! Hence they have to be numbered not colour coded. Now before a beekeeper says you cannot give a super from one hive to another, I know and I haven’t, it’s just impossible to keep colour co-ordinated or so I’ve just discovered. On the up side I think they look pretty with different colours on!. Bloody bees!

Onward and upward - upward being the appropriate word here. I was walking my dog, Miss Tilly, the other evening when I heard a loud buzzing sound. I looked all around me and tried to follow the sound. It seemed to be coming from a bush but I couldn’t see anything, then I gradually started to take some steps back and looked up above me and what did I see? A swarm of honeybees! I stood and watched them for a bit and then spotted, way up in the tree, a cluster of bees starting to gather. As it happened I was only about 200 metres from my house, so I ran across the field and grabbed a wheelbarrow, stand and *nuc. I found some drawn comb and put a small amount of honey on to some of the comb, (just to tempt the bees in), and took it all over to where, by now the swarm had gathered, and left it underneath the swarm in the sunshine, as a bait hive.

I think I’ve told you before, the first outing of a swarm, from their hive, is not their final resting place. This is just getting the queen out and safe and then the scout bees go looking for somewhere more permanent. Which, incidentally, is why you should always contact a beekeeper, or local beekeeping association, if you see a swarm. It will eventually take off and won’t necessarily survive.

I have a sneaky suspicion it could have been from one of my hives, and if so it would, more than likely, be Hive No. 1. Of course, I wanted to catch the swarm, and, again, I would have given it to my friend (yes, this friend of mine desperately wants bees), as six hives is way above and beyond my desire as a hobby beekeeper. I had seven one year and they simply took up too much of my time. I have a horse that needs riding, a friends horse I look after, a dog that requires walking and a job! Next inspection, which should be this weekend, weather permitting, will tell me what I need to know. I’ll admit though, if it’s from Hive No. 1 I won’t be sorry to see the back of that queen as she has very feisty bees which is all down to her, not at all easy to inspect. They aren’t stingy bees, per say, just very buzzy and annoying! My friend would have been welcome to her!

The next morning I went out to look to see if the bait hive had worked, but sadly not, the swarm had gone and the nuc was empty. Ah well, I tried.

I love these images below, taken from Hive No 1. Picture 1, look carefully and you’ll see eggs. No. 2 - lovely healthy larvae. No. 3 - nye on wall to wall covered brood, and No. 4 is sumptuous pollen. I love the bees with their heads down and bottoms up!

It’s been a great Spring for the honeybees and mine have worked extremely hard. Two of my original three hives produced 62 jars of honey - (see the new honey label below). Why only two hives? One of them, as you know from above, had to be split so was too busy either building up a new colony with the old queen in their new hive or rearing a new queen in the old hive! Hive No. 5 came from another split! I know, it seems complicated but it’s not… promise… you just have to be there to understand what’s going on! These pictures are the reward in themselves. Now we await the summer blossoms for the next flow of nectar.

Here are a couple of images I took while out walking Miss Tilly.

The daisies in this neck of the woods have been insane. Everywhere you look they are blooming all around. So much so they almost look like snow from a distance and what do I discover when looking up the correct name for the large daisies? They’re called snow Ladies!

If the blackberry bushes near my apiary are anything to go by there should be a good crop this year. Last year, the rain was so bad, there were hardly any. I pray the bees in this blackberry bush were mine, if not I will have to put an arrow by their hives pointing them in the right direction coz they’re missing out!

I thought I’d show off my new honey label as unless you’re going to be buying honey from me direct you won’t see it! I think it’s rather smart and while I’m talking about the new label which, incidentally, has my logo on it - please note - if you are a fan of ‘The Betsie Valentine Face Book Page’ which I hope you are, the name has changed to MD The Queen Bee. So click on the following link and check it out if you haven’t been on there before! https://www.facebook.com/mdthequeenbee/ Lots of great pictures, not only by me but by other beekeepers too… I share a lot of images by Pimm Lemmers, a wonderful Dutch beekeeper and brilliant photographer and they really are worth looking at! I have deep lens envy!