One is one and all alone...

The master smoker at work

After yesterday's disappointment, we returned in force today to join Star and Moon in colonial endeavours. I had Goulwenn helping me, who has turned out to be a master of the campfire, also known as the smoker. His very thorough and methodical approach certainly guarantees better smoker results.

The bees had broken through the paper, but not in a very widespread way. Perhaps they want to be getting on with other things, rather than interior decorating, now that the season is basically over. Anyway, I felt they had broken through sufficiently to warrant joining them till the next swarm do them part. Taking the Star brood box, I put it to one side and shook each frame over the Moon, seeking to dislodge as many bees from the frame into the brood box. This did not work quite as well as hoped, so we had to resort to persuading the little ladies with the feather.

Persuading the stragglers to jump to the Moon

Checking through each frame, we were astonished to see so few bees. Conspicuous on three frame sides were small clusters of drone cells.

Drone comb - not a good sign at this time of year!

Lonely star

After we had sifted through all frames, we moved the Star away. By doing this, we hoped the remaining bees would fly back to the Moon. Also, perhaps, the bees would clear the stores from the Star, making winter preparations in the Moon easier. Goulwenn and I also checked the Moon, where all was fine, but very very sticky. In the past few weeks where they have hardly been inspected the bees have obviously decided to go propolis mad. It was like working your way through caramel.

Finally, having closed down the Star for this year, I filled the contact feeder with syrup (but didn't have enough to fill it to the brim) and turned it upside down, so the syrup would flow out until a vacuum builds inside the feeder, stopping the flow. Goulwenn kindly smoked the bees, so that when I put the contact feeder onto the frames of the hive, no bees were squashed. Yay!

Filling the feeder

Vacuuming the feeder

The Moon settling down again