Laurence Edwards checks a 3-frame split six weeks after setup to see if the virgin queen mated successfully. The Welsh-mated Buckfast queens are calm and laying well, and the colony has grown enough to expand into 6-frame nucs for overwintering.
Last time I was at Richard's apiary, we looked at a 3-frame split with a virgin queen. 6 weeks later, I'm back and Richard's going to show us the exact same colony, see if the queen's been mated, and see how well they're coming along. So this is the same colony as last time. Just remind us how you set this one up in terms of like the brood and the queen cells that you put in there, Richard.
So this, this would have been 2 frames of brood, one maybe of stores, and then just the cell in. It's quite an easy setup really.
And then, oh, I've spotted the queen already. How good's that? Eagle eye. And she stands out, doesn't she? Wow, she is huge. I love the colour of her. So this is one of the overwintered nucs that we're taking through the year. These are available. These are the Welsh mated Buckfast overwintered colonies that we sell. And I'll just zoom back out there. There we go. Look, we've just opened that up and they are absolutely the calmest bees going, aren't they? Very overcast here today. The bees aren't really flying. And as you can see, no bees flying up whatsoever. These really are the calmest bees around. No brood yet. I can see a tiny little bit of brood there. I can see the queen. Are there any eggs or larvae in there?
No, that's all laid up.
Oh wow, laid up. Very nice.
So we're sort of talking 5 sides. Yeah, she's even on the outside comb. I mean, I don't know if you can see the eggs in there. So we're talking 3 frames of everything, and we're not going to go any further on that side. We'll have a look on the other side.
Can we just have a little peek down?
Yeah, you can. Come a little more. Yeah, you can see the seal brood there.
You can see down there, let me zoom in a bit, so you can see just the edges of the seal brood there. Richard's really cautious at this time of the year not to go in disturbing them too much because you don't want to damage the queens. It can kill them and then you've got a dead colony on your hands. Okay, so that's really good news. So then you've got another 3 frames on the other side.
Yeah.
And what's your plan here then? So say you get 2 takes and both queens are mated, are you planning on overwintering them kind of in this configuration or have they got other plans?
Some I will overwinter in this configuration and others I will hive up into a 6-frame nuc. This is the first time that I've had bees in 3-frame nucs and I'm very interested to see how this goes through the winter months.
Yeah, it's going to be interesting, isn't it? I've never overwintered like a huge amount of them, but I have got them through before and I think having that metal divider in the middle is really good, keeps them nice and separate, but I think having 2 colonies in there definitely helps getting them through as opposed to just having a a single 3-frame split and then having the other side empty. So we've done pretty well though, haven't we? We've got 2 frames out and 2 individual queens. Bees are not fighting each other in that 2-3-frame configuration. She is a beautiful queen. Do you remember which one this one's been bred from, Richard?
These are all Duncan's lines.
Same Duncan Simmons lines again. And they're kind of, you can tell, can't you, the Duncan ones, they're very long and then they're orange, but they have that black tip at the end, don't they? Very similar looking queens. And you're pleased with these queens, aren't you, in terms of the way they're coming out?
Very much, yeah. And this is the same again. When there's eggs on the external frame at this time of year, you can't really ask for any more.
So that's not Richard kissing the hives, he's just blowing it a bit so I can see down there. And hopefully you can see really nice slabs of brood, good amount of feed in there as well. A very well-mated queen. So you know what, there's not many apiaries that you can do this in. Like, Richard's still working the bees behind me there. Welsh mated, calm Buckfast. I can just take my veil off like that. You've got the bees are flying, they're being attacked by wasps, they're a little bit stressed due to the wasp pressure, but there's no bees trying to sting me or even buzz around me. Like, I'm in their flight path there. I'll just step back and let a few of them through, but they just do not want to sting me. I'm really happy with these bees. Richard's really happy with these bees. If you want to buy our overwintered nucs, go to blackmountainhoney.co.uk.
