A beekeeper inspects a breeder queen colony at night in double-brood setup. The German Buckfast pure island-mated queen is managed to limit egg-laying and extend her lifespan. The hive uses dandelion-infused wax and checkerboarding to encourage laying, with dense brood and calm, young bees throughout.
Let's do a full inspection on a breeder queen colony. So background with this colony here, it's had a few splits taken out of it already this year. It's nowhere near as big as it looks on here, but that is the deal with breeder queens. You want to limit the amount that they lay in order to prolong their life. So this colony here, super, super calm bees. Got them on double brood configuration here, but they're yet to move up into that second brood. They've just started working on the wax in it, in fact. See, we've got some nice Dandelion-infused wax there, all of that yellow wax. So done a bit of checkerboarding on this colony as well. Frame a foundation in the middle of that brood, and they do it every time. They just turn it into a frame of eggs. This queen is being used a lot in our breeding at the moment. She is a German Buckfast pure island-mated queen, and as you can see, quite dark for a Buckfast. I find some of the best producing Buckfast are the darker ones. You know, nice brood pattern. Something lovely about inspecting colonies at this time of the night. All of the bees are still in the hive, back in after a day's foraging. Don't seem to mind too much. Some colonies you inspect at this time of the night and it's, uh, doesn't generally go well. See, lots of nice young nurse bees on that frame, completely full of eggs on that one, and final frame of brood there. Absolutely beautiful. Can't find the queen, but don't need to see her. That is inspection complete.
