Two days after having newspapered together the green queen with her court and the Star hive, I went to have a look whether all had gone as planned. The idea was that the bees should have chewed through the newspaper and found sweet unity together. Indeed, when I got to the Star, a covering of fuzz lay beneath it - obviously the remains of the dailies and tabloids which the bees had consumed in a rather different way to how we usually do. But was the queen all right?
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| Headlines down low |
Having taken off the supers (the old one was very heavy - good news for the honey crop!), I saw that the bees had devoured all the reading material I had given them. Looking into the nuc's brood box, I saw the green queen happily moving about. So everything worked out as I had hoped and the green queen is now the new Star queen.
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| The wall has been breached! |
The only thing I had to do was put the three frames from the nuc that had brood on them into the main brood body of the Star hive. This was not quite as simple as it sounds and the feather was put to extensive use, as all frames that were no longer going to be used had to be clear of bees. Try explaining to a bee that the room she has been using so far suddenly will cease to exist. Eventually all was back to normal and I stored the extra equipment after all bees had left it. The Star hive is now full to bursting, so I suspect they will want to swarm soon. It never ends....
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| Everything back to normal |
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