I observed some honey leaking into the collection chamber a few times as well, and in retrospect think it has been at hot times, well, and after extraction.
In any case, I now make sure at least weekly that the little gap where the tongue of the collection tube goes is free of wax and propolis, so any leakage is lapped up by the bees. Before it gets trapped down there and ferments.
Sometimes it’s enough to just turn the cap a little.
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@Webclan Thanks! Didn’t think about the fact that the honey might ferment. I shall tend to this ASAP.
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Today I made another horrible mistake:
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I poached three frames of capped brood from my strong hives and transferred to my weak hive.
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I noticed some capped brood and feared my bees might not be numerous enough to keep everything warm.
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Here comes the stupid part: I moved the weak hive into the place of one of my stronger hives and vice versa, thinking that the field bees from stronger hive returning and boosting weak hive’s numbers. Big mistake.
All hell broke loose it turned into World War III. I put white trays below each entrance to gauge the severity of the fighting. The weak hive had an entrance reducer, and the most dead bees on the tray. The tray under the strong hive has fewer casualties.
Out of fear that the queen might be killed, I switched the hives back posthaste. I collected the dead bees and it filled a 400g jar half way. Fighting subsided at the strong hive but continued at the weak hive.
Did a large number of bees gain entrance into the weak hive and are busy eradicating the hosts?
Is there anything I can do to remedy my stupidity??
I also fear that the strong bees that have teken residence in the weak hive are going to return to their original hive when they come back from foraging tomorrow.
One of my motivations was that if the field bees return with a full belly of nectar, the guards would let them through without a fuss. Obviously not the case.
Hi Deon, I frequently use that strategy. I did it late yesterday afternoon. I only do that when the conditions are good with plenty of honey coming in with no problems.
We all make monumental mistakes & feel quite stupid after making then. The main thing is to learn from them & ask ourselves what we could do differently next time.
What I did yesterday was remove the strong hive & put it somewhere else, then place the weak hive in it’s place. They were side by side for half a day. The weak hive was a trap-out that I abandoned earlier that day. There was only enough bees to cover one frame.
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So today I did a full inspection of my strong swarm-hive. I’m afraid it doesn’t look good (I think):
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Almost half of all cells that contain eggs, contain multiple eggs per cell. The other half, however, look totally normal
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In addition to this, some of the eggs are even laid on top of pollen.
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I don’t see an inordinate number of drones and the bee population is booming.
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I couldn’t find the queen, nor did I see emergency cells. There were a couple of unconventional cells that face down, are located on the bottom of the comb, but hardly protrude from the comb as a normal queen cell would.
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The brood pattern is all messed up, with no discernable circle laying pattern. The pollen and nectar are also placed willy-nilly, although each frame has a good-sized strip of honey at the top.
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There are eggs on each and every side and every frame in the hive.
I obviously have a laying worker problem. But then again, the other “normal” cells lead me to believe there is still a queen present? I’m so confused.
This is obviously the result of the confusion I caused by switching positions with my weakest hive.
The bigger the hive, the more stressful the inspections become. Look what my hive looks like post-inspection. Note that this is the case with all my strong hives and is very commonplace with apis mellifera capensis & scutellata. I am starting to dread inspections; not due to a lack of interest or enthusiasm, but due to the utter disruption it causes for the bees. I keep my inspections quick and try and be as infrequent as possible. Because the bees are all over the place, I inevitably end up killing a couple, which breaks my heart. Am I being silly, or does anyone else feel this way?
On another, better note:
My Flow frames are filling frightfully fast! 
Just need to be capped, so I’m expecting my first batch of honey soon.
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Hi Deon,
I think it might be really helpful if you could take a couple (several) photos of the brood and eggs in question and show them here…- if that is tricky outside, I would shake all the bees off, come inside the house and take some decent ones. See if you can get the eggs in the photo.
My concern on inspections is crushing the queen. 
So I checked the hive that I split (Demaree) 7 days ago and found something unexpected:
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Only three queen cells in three different frames
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The queen cells are at the bottom of the frame?
Wasn’t there supposed to be more? Should the queen cells not be built on face of the comb, especially seeing as the frames were filled to the brim with eggs?
The queen cell in the top picture is sealed so is more than 9 days old. The one in the bottom is nearly sealed so is 8?days old.
You split 7 days ago. They were there when you split them.
You have to Demarree before swarm preps are made.
@Dee I can understand how one can miss one queen cell, but three?! I shook all the frames and checked them thoroughly (or did I?). Cape Bee queens may already start emerging on day 13.
Today was the 8th day after splitting them, and cape bee queen cells start to be sealed on the 8th day. It just feels too close to be coincidence.
Let’s say I did my job properly and there weren’t any queen cells when I transferred the frames; do bees ever build emergency cells on the bottom of the comb?
@Dee For a moment I thought that the queen might be in the top box, but then I remembered that I checked every frame and found not a single egg.
Here is a better pic of queen cell #2:
Shall I also add that it’s a modified Demaree I’m referring to; used to facilitate queen rearing.
Where is your queen?
- which takes me back to point 4 in your post 11 days ago…where you noticed some unusual cells…
I’m wondering if those cells have tuned into what you now see - or perhaps I am confusing things?
My apologies. I should’ve been clearer: the inspection I did 11 days ago was of a different colony. The one I inspected today was my strongest colony, and the one I’m splitting in order to expand my operation.
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Hi Deon, I may get protests about this, but if I remember correctly from research I did a while back, that the three different types of queen cells (swarm, emergency and supercedure) can be anywhere on the comb of the frames.
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Yes yes yes …
Yes…What I meant was where is your queen? Have you looked. I know where she is meant to be.
How many supers have you got between the two brood boxes?
Update 1: Split
I transferred each of the frames with a queen cell, together with frames of pollen, honey and capped brood, into it’s own 4-frame nucs. Happy to report that the queen cells hadn’t emerged at the time of separation.
My question now is: Where do I move these nucs to? They’re current next to the parent hive, which probably isn’t ideal.
Update 2: Laying worker hive
I did a thorough check of the hive that was showing evedence of a trigger happy ovipositor a few weeks ago; I found no evidence of a laying worker. All eggs I found were single and at the bottom of the cell. What’s more, I found plenty of capped worker brood and very few drone.
Here is one of the frames:
This colony, though numerous, have not moved into the super at all, even though all the frames in the brood box are chock-a-block I’m thinking about painting some sugar syrup onto the wax foundation to lure them up?
Have a great weekend.