Well, not “move” so much perhaps, as to get a new one.
It was a very pleasant morning this morning when the wind wasn’t blowing, so I decided to swap three colonies of bees from the boxes they were in to poly hives. After the chaos of last Spring, not all the bees were in the boxes I wanted them in, so having taken advantage of that fact to get a few repairs done and repainting I thought that this afternoon I might as well get them moved.
The first colony was very calm and building up nicely, no bother to move the brood box to one side, put a new one in its place and transfer the frames across. I didn’t even need to use the smoker.
The second was an entirely different hovercraft of eels. It was bursting at the seams and most dischuffed at the disruption to their living space. As I was moving frames into the new box I noticed a charged queen cell on the bottom of one frame. I wasn’t expecting that! I estimate that it was probably around four days old, so I have a few days before they consider swarming. Time to close them up and go away to have a think about what to do next.
The third was somewhere between the two. They didn’t seem too distressed about what was going on, but it was harder to tell because of the fall-out from the previous hive.
So, all done, relatively little fuss and one “problem” to resolve over the next couple of days.
Early this evening I went out to tidy up the hive parts I’d left out, put straps back on the hives and mow the grass in front of them. All the bees had returned to their hives and everything was quiet, so that looks like a success to me.