After some reading decided to put screened bottom boards and repaint my beehives even though in Western Australia we don’t have any Varroa mites. Apparently it’s supposed to give better ventilation. We’ll see.
After a couple of weeks I discovered a big fat moth grub in the pull out tray. Lots of debris too.
As I have an extra beehive could only replace one hive at a time and today was my last one. The last one was also the largest and angriest colony. I tried this one a few weeks before but because this one was so populated and active gave up. After having done my other ones had a bit more confidence. Hey I was self taught. A sunny warm morning and the strong winds didn’t help. After an hour I successfully moved them only getting stung twice. Getting the flow frames out of the super was a game as the bees had been busy with wax. They truly are wax making machines.
Initially when I put them together followed the instructions for a snug fit. The new supers have more sideway movement and I screw the adjusters in most of the way. The bees waxworks will keep it all in place.
The following pics show how much wax was in the super. I cut out as much honeycomb as possible for ourselves.
Not seeing any swarm cells was a good sign even though the colony looked overfull with lots of honey.
