In this episode of the "One Colony No Splits" series, the presenter conducts a late‑night inspection of a river‑side apiary to determine whether the colony has swarmed and to evaluate its honey stores. He notes that the supers are unusually heavy, indicating a strong honey flow that has dramatically increased over the past two weeks. Detailed observations of each box (national deeps and shallows) show most frames are full and capped, with some pollen accumulation in the supers. The presenter discusses colony temperament, the decision not to add more boxes, and plans for a pollen trap to reduce excess pollen. After a thorough search, he locates the queen—identified by her white paint and clipped wing—confirming that she has not swarmed. He estimates the colony’s honey value at roughly £70‑£80 and outlines future management steps: applying Apivar, preparing for winter, reducing inspection frequency, and concluding the series with a honey harvest video. The tone is conversational and enthusiastic, with a focus on practical beekeeping insights.
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Right, it's been 2 weeks since I promised that I wouldn't come back late at night and do videos in my hives. Here I am, it's nearly 9 o'clock, and yeah, we're back to angry, angry bees. So you're just going to have to put up with it for this video, I'm afraid. These colonies are due to be moved. The only time I can get down here is late at night. There's a couple in this apiary that aren't very good, but the big question that we really want to find out today, has the queen swarmed in this colony? And a secondary question is, how much honey have they put away? Last time we thought maybe they were a little bit below average for the apiary, I reckon last 2 weeks they're going to have really caught up. Let's get inside, find the queen, see how we're getting on for honey. Well, that— it literally already, I can say, oh my God, that box is so, so heavy. So much heavier than last time. This is what you get with the Demeray split. Bees, bees, bees. You're breeding more bees, and if you time that mass population with a good honey flow, Oh, I'm putting down this box. They fill up the boxes so quickly. And if you don't believe me, check out some of these frames. These were pretty much empty in the last episode. Got fresh nectar in there as well. The bees are filling up all those spaces. I'll be very happy if all the boxes look as good as this, but the fact that the top box is this full bodes very well indeed. Whoa! And again, people think I make up these noises. It's quite high. That is a heavy, heavy box. They've capped over that one, but it shows we still got the nectar flows coming in. Lots and lots of nectar on that frame. Really, really heavy. I mean, that is a heavy, heavy frame. Good to see. They have come on leaps and bounds in the last 2 weeks, and they have definitely caught up with the others in the apiary. Let's go a bit further down and see if it extends into those shallows. I know I got a few flyers, but you know what? They're not that bad, this colony. As they progress through the season, the temperament has definitely, definitely improved. We're in the business here. This is a heavy shallow box. So there we go. As we see, last time there were lots of empty boxes on here, and they'd kind of dispersed the honey around a little bit. If you look at that, all of the frames are like this now, pretty much full, mostly capped. Very happy with how we're doing. So that's 3 full boxes, and I mean super, super full. 2 national deeps, 1 national shallow, And we've still got 1, 2, 3 national shallows and a national deep to go before we get to the brood box. Monster honey crop here. I won't count my chickens though, we'll wait until we get it harvested. Things bode well though when you're lifting up boxes and they're that heavy. So I remember this box last time was by far and away the lightest box, and it's not as heavy as the other ones, but it's got a lot of honey in it still. Pull out a couple of the frames and show you the next box down. So even that box there, Really looking very, very good indeed. But they have had a very prolific two weeks. I knew they would because we've had the good weather. It's a river apiary, so the ground's always wet. The flowers always yield. As long as you give it the sun, you get the honey here. Ah, this is just getting a bit silly now. This is the third national deep, and it's really, really heavy again. So not completely full in this one. And as we get closer down to the brood box, you do sometimes get a little bit of an issue, which is pollen stores. in the brood box. Not ideal, but something that I can live with. You just need to try and balance them come extraction. You can see it better on that side there though, lots of pollen in there. You'll get a little bit of that spin out, you'll get the remnants, but yeah, pollen in the supers is a little bit of a pain. So now we're down to the second box, and these two were foundation early on in the year. Noticeably lighter here, like I'm not gonna lie and say they're all completely full. They've drawn this one out though, it's got a good amount of weight to it, but maybe like 30 or 40% full. I'll pull out a couple of frames and show you, and hopefully we can see some presence of some nectar. So it's still pretty good. Bees have got lots of space in there. You can see fresh nectar's coming in. We got them big and now they're packing away that honey, and they will continue doing this for the next few weeks. This is a Himalayan balsam site. They will keep on going until the end of the year. The only thing that stops me going deep into the year here is that I want to stop, get my Apivar strips in, and get the colonies ready for winter. And the fact that I'm closing down this site— what am I doing? I know, closing it down, I'm absolutely bonkers. It is a very good site, but it just doesn't work for me at the moment. And then the final shallow, much of the same really. This was foundation early on in the year, it was mostly foundation 2 weeks ago as well. Not got much weight in it, similar to the one before. Gonna have some pollen, gonna have some nectar, but we're not talking cap stores at the moment. Good though, Bees have got plenty of space. I don't need to add any additional boxes. I never add boxes kind of come the end of July into August. Waste of time for me. I'd prefer for them to beard out the front, finish off the frames that are in there already. Right, let's get in, see if we can find that queen. Just love this queen. Like, the frames are brood all the way up to the edge. She has not skipped a beat the entire year. Again, beautiful frame, 2 sides of lovely brood. Can't resist showing you that one as well. Like, the frames of brood are just astounding. Every single frame has been like this so far. 5 frames of solid capped brood, 1 frame of eggs, no honey at all down in the brood box, nice ring of pollen. This queen is exactly what I look for in terms of a honey-producing queen. Temperament's not perfect, something we can improve on, but you can't argue with the honey production. So it could get quite difficult to find queens at this point of the year. Bad light as well, like it's getting really dark now. But like, there's a lot of bees, huge, huge amount of bees in a colony like this. You just gotta persevere, just gotta go with it. Definitely worth a show, that one. That's a nice pollen frame for some queen rearing. Put that one to one side. Huge, huge pollen collectors, these ones. I'm gonna get my pollen trap out here, do a final end-of-year pollen trap because they've got way too much in this colony and they could do with using a little bit of it up. So maybe I'll get my pollen trap out for 24, 48 hours, see what I can get on a nice warm day. Right, I've gone all the way through front to back and I can't find the queen. No swarm cells, I've seen eggs, kind of want to find the queen though, so I'll do one more check front to back, and if I can't find her, we'll just close it up. And there we go, famous last words. There is my queen. She is so perfectly recognizable by her awfully splodged white paint and her clipped wing. The queen has definitely not swarmed. And I'm really happy with that. Doesn't get much better. Nearly into August. What we wanted to do in this video is get this colony through the year without the colony swarming. We are 95% of the way through that task, I reckon. Right, so I'm gonna go home and have some dinner because it is nearly half 9 now. Very, very late and very difficult to inspect with so many bees in a colony like this. 1, 2, 3, 4— 4 national shallows. 3 national deeps, a 14 by 12 brood box, and it's full, full from the very bottom to the very top, bearding out of the entrance. How to get your colonies to not swarm, but also a really good byproduct, which is get a huge, huge amount of bees. Time that with a good nectar flow, and the best byproduct is lots and lots of honey. If I had to take an estimate of this colony, I'd be talking around maybe £70 or £80. Maybe even topping 100 pounds come the end of the season, but I have learned to not count up boxes and kind of say, wow, that's a 200-pound colony, because when you extract it and then you kind of sit there looking at it and thinking, oh yeah, maybe I overestimated that. Bee maths is very good, very fun maths, but I do think a conservative estimate around the 70 or 80-pound mark, I'd be happy with that, but even happier that the bees have yet to swarm. Definitely not too late to swarm though, going into August. Okay, I'm probably not going to do weekly inspections anymore because I think the risk is low. They've got sufficient space. I think they're just naturally going to start contracting that brood nest down now, and I'll probably come here every other week and continue to do this video. I'll finish the series off when we do the honey harvest, and then I will follow it up when it's in the bucket and show you how much honey I got. Hope you're enjoying this series though. Definitely hit the subscribe button. We'll do loads more series each and every year. Thanks for joining me on this series though, definitely one I've really enjoyed.
