Hive Check 16 August

Donald and I did a quick check between showers. We used some new smoker burner pellets in an effort to keep the thing alight during the check. After a couple of false starts and some nurturing we managed to keep it going. The bees had really put down some stores since last week and the number of sealed brood was up. They were starting to draw out the foundation too. We didn't see the queen but saw eggs. As we are not taking off any honey and as the varroa count is beginning to rise (10 in the week) we put on an Apiguard treatment. It will stay on for 2 weeks then another put on to reduced their numbers as much a possible before the winter. Donald, an engineering student is doing a research project on bee sounds. As part of the project we exploring installing a device which will monitor hive noise and hopefully give us more information about their health and temperament and even a warning before they swarm. It ll be interesting to see what sort of information we get from it. The idea behind the product is to reduce the need to disturb the bees with frequent checks. We hope next year to have one hive with the monitor and a second to complete normal checks or a mixture of the 2. What ever happens checks will still go ahead every week.