Making Honey, Happy Bees - 2 Flow Hives occupied now - Diamond and Crystal are coming

The bees will keep making more drones if you take out drone comb only if you leave them an empty space to do so. By replacing that removed drone comb with foundation, the bees will make more workers.

I never consider a queen to be a 100% “Queen right” until the bees start capping the brood.

Yes you absolutely need to make sure that brood is worker particularly if you are selling it.
Valli will be ok I should think. We’ve had decent mating weather and there must be gazillions of drones where she is. We need the rain to back off now for two of mine and for the bramble to flower

I am and we have not had a totally fine day for 2 weeks. I’ve had to do a vertical AS on one of the colonies and I don’t like going upwards. Two 14x12 boxes and three supers is hard to manage. I could just split but then that means little honey from either just as the bramble is coming

We have had the most glorious weather until this last week of rain

I agree Dee, I never let colonies go out unless the queen is 100% right. I’m sure with all of those drones in the area that queen will be right.

RAIN: we’re gett’n our fair share of it here.

Remember I told you it was currently too cold for shb activity. Well, after cutting the comb out of the frames & stacking it in a bin, there was enough warmth there for the beetle to get active. There was lots of young larvae in the comb as I melted it down today.

Well this queen sure likes drones in her colony! But lots of worker comb too.
I get my carniolans from Paynes as they are well mated. My new one is super busy filling everywhere with worker brood…all we need is a nectar flow.
I shall be removing the drones combs once they have emerged and replace with fresh foundation. I need to get the national frMes out anyway and replace with 14x12 Frames.
I bought a couple of carniolan queens last year from another source …but they were drone layers…I am going to order a new carniolan queen for a Nuc I’m making from Paynes.
The bees were doing really well during the warm sunny days but now it is very unsettled again…rain, thunder, sunshine!

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HHH it has hardly stopped throwing it down here all day - absolutely torrential

Bright sunshine here now but we had rain since 12.30 for the afternoon. My two Pomeranians went out for a pee break and both had to have towel wraps…which they love. We just managed to get the bee inspections finished before the first rain drops hit us…then it was thundering. We needed some rain but now I would like it to stop doing it! I hear some people have been flooded out again…it’s dreadful.
Off to order my new carniolan queen now…the nuc is already on 3 frames of brood…then the old queen can make another new nuc for me.

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I heard of a place locally last night that sells buckies - but I’m a little skint so may wait until next year

Quite fine here again today but thundery. Got a super off the testy colony and they chased us right across the field. I can tell you I cannot run faster than a bee flies but the dog can.

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Just managed to find and mark Diamond Video to come.

She has Black Bee Genes - Very dark banding.

No surprises there Diamond is Emeralds Daughter and Emerald is 1/4 Black Bee Mated

Queen Diamond

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I’m confused about BIAS

Brood In All Stages - egg, larvae, capped

That clears that up because I couldn’t see any capped brood on that first frame.

The Capped brood is on the Black frame - but I’m getting used to the new camera and it was completely out of focus

Well done, that’s a beautiful queen you have there. She is a beauty.

Thank you she is beautiful - she may be 50% apis mellifera mellifera

How is she half amm?

She was bred in Wales and Emerald always threw about 25% amm. With that Colouring her daddy looks amm.

Without being tested it is only an educated guess.