Its been a busy old day and time consuming to say the least..
My goal today which was planned..
(i know nothing goes to plan) and i did not go as planned for sure..
Anyway my goal today was to remove supers and check the brood boxes and here goes..
Hive (1) ..Lovely 2019 F1 Buckfast on single brood box..the two supers where jam packed but nothing worth extracting yet..a 3rd was added..no swarm preps and all was good..
Hive (2).. half ok local mongrels 2019 Queen..single brood..the two supers where jam packed but nothing worth extracting..3rd super added..
Hive (3)..Nightmare..a local mongrel colony headed by a 1019 Queen that was ok at one point..it tried to swarm two weeks ago with a clipped Queen which was lost..one Queen cell was left with the colony and the frame marked..today the hive had around 14 Queen cells and the capped one i left for them..i knocked all but one down till i got the the marked frame...when i got to the marked frame the sealed Queen cell was still unopened.. i picked the end of the cell and a nice looking virgin walked of onto the comb so i destroyed the last remaining open Queen cell..in between all of this the bees where going mental..smoke was needed and the bellows on my smoker must have taken 50+ stings..(borrowed time is this Queen) .. a 3rd super added..
Hive (4) Lovely colony...Buckfast 2018 Queen on double brood..no swarm prep and a fourth super added..
Hive (5) 2019 Buckfast on single brood no swarm preps and a fifth super added..
Hive (6)..a lovely hive with a 2019 mongrel Queen.. but they just can not make honey..i am keeping these alive from the soft git inside..this said hive had several open Queen cells ..i destroyed all but one and put the Queen into a nuc on a frame of brood and shook a load of bees into it..(we will see what happens)..
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Hive (7) .. a totally mental colony with a bought in 2019 Buckfast Queen..these bees are nuts however no swarm preps from last inspection..all i did today with these is give them a fifth super and close them up..
As you will see my main goal today was hoodwinked from wild card colonies..we will get there in the end but it is pointless making the honey extractor mucky unless you can fill them buckets..