Another warm day, Paul and I started by cutting back the grape vine that was threatening to over take our spare hive, which didn't help. We were then joined by Roman, Alicja and Joseph, who is a bee keeper in his own right. We did the normal check, pulling out each of the frames checking that we can see eggs, brood, stores and if possible the queen. We also look for signs that the bees might be preparing to swarm and a general visible check on their health. Yesterday we saw everything except newly laid eggs, not a problem as we saw the queen but something to look out for next week. They have drawn out one of the new frames a little but are stubbornly refusing to move fully across.
As you might know bees have a very defined hive life cycle and once they are born their first jobs are cleaning and feeding the larvae, at this stage they are not flying bees. Its always endearing to see these bees holding onto each other in strings (photo) when we take out the frames. They come to no harm but are trying not to fall off the frame as they then have to walk back up.
After we reassembled the hive checked the varroa board, we could only see one, Paul took a photograph of it. We gave them another litre of syrup in case they ever need it for comb building then got out of our suits as soon as we could.
The wasps are being very persistent and a third nest is being dealt with in the education building next week. If you see any possible nests please report them to Kusco, it very distressing to see the bees being attacked by wasps
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