Today was the end of my last hive - Poly had finally had her day.It was the first of the beginner’s classes, so to begin with we showed them Poly, as an example of a weak hive that’s failed to come through winter particularly well. When opened up there were around 100-200 bees, the queen, 30 capped brood cells (some with dead half-emerged bees), 6 larvae and no sign of eggs. This is obviously not enough to keep them going, and the dead emerging bees indicates the workforce has been too small to allow the colony to expand. I did the only option available - took out and killed the queen (never a nice thing to have to do) and shook out and sealed up the hive so its now empty.
The other hive on site is however bursting to the seams with bees, and will probably want to swarm some time in the next 2-3 weeks (we’re already bringing on one nuc from it, with more planned). After inspecting it there were signs that some of the bees from Poly had been attracted to it (probably from the nasonov scenting of the air by its workers at the door), so hopefully some of them will end their days in a slightly happier way.
Of course now I have to put all my efforts into helping along these other colonies if I’m to continue being a beekeeper!
