In this solo beekeeping vlog, Laurence Edwards inspects a large, high‑rise colony to assess swarming risk and overall colony health during the June foraging gap. He explains how missed inspections have previously led to swarms and outlines his goal of preventing swarming through simple manipulations that provide the bees with enough space. Edwards walks through each hive box, noting the weight, honey stores, brood presence, and the condition of a previously added super. He highlights the importance of giving bees ample space, using a queen excluder, and performing a Demeray‑style split when needed. The June gap, caused by two weeks of rain, has reduced foraging, leading to a drawdown of stores and a temporary slowdown in brood rearing. Edwards discusses his decision to forgo a spring honey crop to avoid panic feeding, and he mentions a possible badger disturbance that may have affected colony temperament. He discovers that a bottom 14 × 12 box, expected to be empty, is actually full of honey, prompting him to bruise the frames to make the stores accessible. The queen is observed laying prolifically across three brood boxes, indicating a strong colony poised for a large summer honey flow. Edwards concludes with a plan to monitor the colony, perform a future split when the brood and stores are abundant, and aim for a bumper honey crop in the summer months.
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I have no idea what episode it is, but we are doing everything we possibly can to try and get this colony here not to swarm. I've lost a couple of swarms in this apiary because I haven't been down here enough. It's a little bit too far away, and when it rains, I miss my slot, so then it turns into kind of like a 14-day inspection. A couple of colonies I've lost, they've swarmed. I have no idea if this colony here has swarmed. I'm hoping the manipulations that we've completed mean that it won't have swarmed, but with bees, you just never know. The temperament of these bees is slightly improving, but I'm kind of beginning to think I know which colony it is. I don't think it's the colony we're going into today. I think it's the colony next to it. Really, really not a nice temperament, and you can see the activity out the front of it there. They are very, very feisty, where all the other colonies here are pretty chilled out. So I'll get into the bees now. We'll see if they swarmed. I'm going to do a really simple manipulation today because I just want to eke us through for the next couple of weeks. To try and get us through to the longest day of the year. And then I think the risk of swarming really does subside a little bit after that. Definitely doesn't go away. You'll lose swarms in June, July, August, even September. You need to keep up your inspections, but the chances definitely drop a little bit. And the 3 most difficult months of the year, April, May, and June, first part of June. Let's get inside, see if they've swarmed, see how they're getting on. So it's always really, really nice when you open up a colony this high and you can't even see it because my hand is out of shot there. And there's bees coming out the top. That's always a really, really good sign. Means that there's bees up to the top, which if they'd swarmed, they'd probably be about down to here or something like that. Great sign that there's bees up there. So in today's video, I'm not going to go through all the boxes again. I'll give you a little count up. I'll tell you how many boxes are full of bees, boxes are full of honey. But what I'm interested in today is the brood area and most importantly, the bottom 14 by 12 brood box that was part of the original Demeray, that with a little bit of luck is going to be completely empty. And we can just take it away. So that's my top box there, full of bees, not too much honey in it. Let's work our way down. Right, another box there. That's considerably heavier, that one. Lots of bees, lots of honey. People think I make up these groans. Genuinely really, really heavy box, that one. I'm going to have to put this one down. I've said this on previous videos, this is not for the faint of heart, and this is not for people who can't lift a heavy box. Trying to do this just to show you what you can do What you can get out of your bees and some manipulations, and you need to kind of take that into your own house, into your own apiary, and do what you want with it. 7-foot, 8-foot high colonies are definitely not for everyone, and to be honest, they're kind of not for me as well. This is such hard work. So this super here, this is an empty super. This is the one that we added on last time. Looking into it, it's all drawn out though, so really nice to think that the bees have been in there. They've drawn that out ready for the flows that are coming very soon. And this box here is completely empty. Got some bees in it, but it's just a box of foundation and the bees have not even touched it. This is what you would expect at this time of year. We are well and truly slap bang in the middle of the June gap here. There is nothing going on. The bramble is just about to come out. So these bees are in such a good position in order to take advantage of those flows. And for me here, the summer flow is the big main flow that we're looking at. Right. So we're back down to like, I don't know, shoulder height, a manageable level. And we've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 boxes on. Okay, a couple of those boxes are empty. It's overinflating how tall this colony is, but it's just living that ethos, which is give the bees sufficient space, always stay ahead of them. That is rule number one when it comes to trying to not get a colony to swarm like this. If you don't give them enough space, you can't have a go at them for swarming. They will swarm if they've not got enough space. However, giving them enough space doesn't mean that they won't swarm. Still need to do your inspections. Let's have a look inside the brood box. Quick inspection through the frames, check for swarm cells, and then we'll see what's going on in that bottom box and see if the bees have emptied it out. So there's my queen, she's wandering around. I've been through that top box there, loads of eggs, can't see any swarm cells. So we've got all the way through to the 7th of June and this colony hasn't swarmed. What I like to do here, I'm going to take this top box, put it over there, but I'm going to put a queen excluder underneath it. Just to make sure that the queen is confined to this box and I don't lose her. So I'll go through the next box now, take a look, but I tell you what, it is so apparent what is going on at the moment. Like, the June gap really has hit hard here. I've gone backwards in terms of stores, both in the brood box and in the supers, but it's to be expected. It's pretty much rained solid here for about 2 weeks. The bees have got nothing to do. And you've got jumbo colonies. Like, it's pretty hard to get colonies this big and keep them that big when there's not just perfect weather on tap. As soon as you turn that weather off, as soon as you turn the flow off, they will eat the honey they've stored and they will go through it so, so quickly. I stopped taking a spring crop because I found taking a spring crop for me in North Wales gives me such a headache. And I'm so, so happy again. I feel completely vindicated in my decision to Not take a spring crop, because if I'd have taken away their honey a week or two ago, I would be panic feeding now. Absolutely panic feeding to try and make sure that all of my colonies don't die. Much, much happier to let them take their stores, work them down in the supers with the hope that they will make it all back up again in summer as long as I can keep the numbers strong. I have to say as well, considering we're in the middle of the June gap and the colony is so big in this apiary, I think they They've definitely calmed down a little bit. It's like 7 PM at night at the moment. The bees aren't flying and they're not hitting me as hard as they were last week. So something's happened in the apiary. They've kind of calmed down a little bit. I was speaking to someone about this apiary and what they said to me was so interesting. Without me giving them a tiny, even little bit of a hint, I said, I've got one apiary that's just gone wild, absolutely horrible and rogue on me. And the first thing they said was, have you got a badger issue there? Straight off the bat they said that. And the second they said it, I thought, yeah, really, really the worst apiary by far. Like, you can see the badgers running around, you can see the damage they're doing at the front of the entrance. And I kind of thought, you know what, if I was a bee, I'd be annoyed at someone coming in when you've got such a badger problem as well. Anyway, I've completely gone off on a tangent there. Let's get into this brood box, see if we can see any swarm cells in this next box down, and then we'll get to that bottom box. Right, so that's another whole box I've been through. Quite a few eggs, not that much capped brood, literally not a drop of nectar, no stores. They have completely dried up the brood box. Really interesting. Which leads me to believe when I go into this 14 by 12 box, which if you remember from the previous week, it was at the top full of honey. I didn't want honey in it. I shifted it back down to the bottom. I reckon it's going to be bone dry. That box there, that is pretty much featherweight. Let's take a look down there and see what they've done. I know, I know, famous last words. It's going to be full of honey or brood or something, isn't it? I genuinely think there's going to be nothing in this box. Amazing! Absolutely the complete opposite of what I said. Like, you could not have been more wrong. It is chock-a-block full of stores. Just goes to show the bees don't always play ball. So I know the queen's over there. What I'm going to do with this box here, I'll pull out a couple of frames. I'll show you the frames, and I'm just going to get my hive tool in there, bruise all of those stores. The bees will work it up, they'll access it. It'll be a welcome relief for them because there's nothing available. And then we're going to get this box cleared eventually. It's going to give the bees additional space, give the queen additional space to lay if she needs it. And then we're going to take it away and continue adding those boxes above. So as I said, 100% not going to be any stores in there. Absolutely chock-a-block full of stores. Couldn't get heavier than that. No eggs or anything though, so that's good. Can just bruise this frame up now and they will work all of those stores and hopefully bring it upwards. Okay, it wasn't quite as bad as I thought, and I'm really glad, you know, because I thought if I went down to that box and it was just full to the brim with honey, I would have really made a bit of a big mistake there. In fact, that frame that I pulled out was kind of one of 2 frames that are only honey. The rest of it's brood. She's been back down there, she's been laying it up, frames of eggs, loads of frames of capped brood like this one here. She's making use of that additional space and she's laying back over all of those 3 boxes. So 2 National Deeps, 1 National 14 by 12. And as you can see, she is an absolute laying machine. She really is going to town laying those eggs. And if you want big honey crops, what you need to do is you need to have lots of bees. Sounds the simplest thing in the world, but keeping those bees, keeping them happy, stopping them swarming, that is the difficult bit. And this jigging around, this little bit of box manipulation, it does work. Probably knackers your queens quite quickly, and you might get a supersedure at some point, but I'd much prefer to have a late season supersedure than have your colony swarming in May. So all I'm going to do, I'm going to bruise the frames where they've got those stores in. It's only 2 or 3 of them. I'm going to put everything back together and I'm going to leave this colony on a treble brood. There's plenty of frames down here that have not been completely drawn out yet, plenty of drawn comb frames that haven't got any eggs laid in it. Queen's got lots of space. There comes a point with this where you really don't need to keep on doing manipulation changes like that. I've got 3 brood boxes, I've got space in the brood box, there's no need for me to do anything else. What I will wait for is when that colony has Chock-a-block full in those three boxes of either stores or brood. I'll do a further demeray split. I'll lift all of that brood up to the top. I'll leave them on this bottom brood box. I'll add more spacing in the form of foundation. I'll put the queen excluder where I think the queen excluder should go, and then I will hope for a bumper honey crop. I'm so happy with the way this colony is performing though. Really, really good performance this year so far. They're bringing in a lot of honey. I've not taken a spring crop. I've managed to keep a very big, strong colony of bees all the way through to early June. They're not trying to swarm just yet, and if we get good weather throughout June, July, and August, we're going to be on for a bumper, bumper honey crop. If you want to catch up with this series, check out this playlist here. We're up to about episode 10, but I completely lose count on the episodes. All I know is we've made it to June and the colony hasn't swarmed.
