The Blue Hive (BH) failed over winter so is now sat awaiting a swarm. Though I might swap it out for another to allow me to clean up a dirty hive.
Key dates and log of activities
28/2/26 BH failed over winter so cleaned out. Lots of dead bees on the floor and loads of honey in the frames. Honey used for early year feeding around the apiary.
4/7/25 Harvested 5 half flow frames. The frames were fully capped but covering about half the area. Could have left these for the rest of the month but they were doing so well and so heavy that I thought it best to give them some more space. The frames were returned back to the hive to be refilled. Will try and harvest again in late August or first week of September. This was also the opportunity to change the battery on the hive heart.
28/06/25 – Need to check on the supers to see if it is due a harvest 50 Kg is a lot of weight for this hive. checked and indeed it needs harvesting next week. All frames are >80% capped so it is good to go. just enough space for one more week of activities just to finish it off.
9/5/25 Inspection showed the hive was full so gave them a super. Added a flow super in the blue box and swapped 2 nearly full frames from the Red Poly in to get them started.