In this solo vlog, Laurence Edwards returns to a North Wales apiary two weeks after his last visit, having missed a scheduled inspection due to bad weather. He explains his goal of preventing swarming after a recent Demerara split and outlines his plan to use a smoker for the first time to keep the bees calm. Throughout the inspection he examines brood frames, noting an abundance of drone brood, a lack of eggs on several frames, and the absence of visible swarm cells, which raises concerns that the colony may have already swarmed. After a thorough search he eventually locates the queen on a frame with healthy, open brood and royal jelly, confirming the colony is still intact. Edwards discusses the importance of inspecting at the optimal time of day (mid‑day on a flow) to reduce defensive behavior, reflects on how his own rush and timing can affect perceived aggression, and outlines his short‑term management plan: leaving the colony undisturbed for the next 6‑8 weeks, allowing the brood nest to develop, and continuing weekly weekend inspections. He emphasizes that proper timing, use of smoke, and understanding colony temperament are key to guiding the bees through the season without further splits or swarming.
Chapters
It's been 2 weeks since I was last at this colony, and we're doing everything we possibly can to stop them swarming. I've skipped a week. I didn't mean to skip a week. Hopefully the bees haven't swarmed. I'll get my bee suit on. Let's go and check up on the colony, see how they're getting on. So last couple of videos, I've had some comments about these bees' temperament, and the same across all my apiaries. I generally don't use a smoker, but you know what, when the bees are getting like that and you're doing it at the wrong time of the day, it's probably good to get into a habit of using the smoker. So I've come here today on the weekend, middle of the day, Nice warm day, bees are on a flow. I'm outside the colony, they're not even bothering with me. Did the intro, didn't get stung in the face. I'm going to use the smoker today, see if we can keep the bees as calm as possible. If you remember back previous videos, we did that Demerara split, we moved away the top boxes so everything now can be used as a honey super, barring the 14 by 12 brood box. Hopefully the bees are still there. I always do these intros and I've not gone into the colonies yet, so this could be a massive flop. And this series is all about getting the bees through the whole of the season not swarming and not making any splits. So I hope I don't get into July, 2nd of July today, and we get to the point where the bees are starting to swarm. I'm carrying on with my weekly inspections, but I did miss a week here because it was just so bad, the weather, absolutely pouring it down and I couldn't do my weekly inspection. Hopefully the bees are still in there. Let's get inside and find out. Right, so I think you'll agree the bees are a lot better today and this is what the bees should be like. I'm looking in here though and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, I really hope they haven't swarmed and that's the reason that they're a lot calmer. On this side over here, that's where I've got all of my stacked up supers. Over here, this is where I've got my brood nest. Okay, I've done the Demarest split, so I'm not expecting 10 frames of brood and lots of bees down here, but it does look a little bit weak. Not quite as big as it was in previous weeks. Fingers crossed they've not swarmed. Now that is the worst possible sign when you're pulling out a frame hoping that they've not swarmed, to see that many drones. Is not good. I'm fearing for the worst here. Fingers crossed the queen and the bees are still here. So I just thought I'd hold this one down here a little bit. Just notice the difference in temperament on this colony here. Got a nice day, I'm doing it at the correct time of the day, middle of the day, warmest time of the day. Okay, that's maybe not best for beekeepers in terms of heat, it's hot, but there's a nice flow on and you're inspecting the bees when the bees should be inspected. The easiest time of the day for the bees, when the majority of the bees that could be angry are out foraging. So much easier. But I'm a little bit worried about this colony, I have to say. Like, I think they might have swarmed. I'm going through, I'm not definite that they've swarmed yet, and I've still not found any swarm cells. But that first frame we found was loads of drone brood. This frame here, I'll give you a little close-up, absolutely jam-packed full of brood. Like, this queen is a monster. One of the best queens that I've got. Face to face, 14 by 12. Look at that brood. Nothing wrong with it whatsoever. Very healthy brood, but not a single egg. Can't see any eggs anywhere. So I'll continue my search. Hopefully we find the queen. Hopefully we don't find any swarm cells. But at the moment, it's a little bit touch and go. And here we go, another frame. Let's cut back a couple of weeks and show you what it was like when I was here in the middle of the June gap, when the bees were defensive and it was 8 o'clock at night and it was poor weather. Very, very different temperament. So I'll just reiterate, it's not that it's angry bees all the time. Sometimes it's when you go in as a beekeeper and you really do need to kind of go with the bees and let them tell you when it's best to inspect. But another frame here, no eggs, not a single egg. Wall-to-wall brood, really nice temperament, calm colony of bees. But I've still not seen any eggs, I've still not seen the queen, and I've still not seen any swarm themselves. So the jury is still out. And here's another one, like exactly the same. If the queen is still in here, she's clearly gone down to this new brood box, laid it up front to back, and then taken a very long break because I'm not seeing hardly any open brood. I'm not seeing any eggs. I'm working from front to back, so there might be some eggs later on as we go through the colony, but so far that is 3 frames of brood, wall-to-wall brood, and a frame of drones as well. Not looking good. Right, this frame here is a lot more promising. I'll give you a close-up. Lots of open brood, brood in all stages, loads of eggs, feeding copious amounts of royal jelly. Still no swarm cells. I reckon the queen's still in here. Let's see if we can go and find her. And here we go. I promise you it's not a setup. There is my queen, right-hand side or left-hand side, I don't know how cameras work, but I finally found my queen. Really nice frame of brood. This colony is doing exactly what I want it to do. So I'm so happy with this colony. They really are transitioning into a very nice, calm colony. Very, very gentle. Most of the boxes over there are not full of honey, but there's bees in, I'd say, 80 to 90% of them. Still a little bit of foundation that needs to be drawn out. And over the next kind of 6 to 8 weeks, that's really all we've got left of the season. This is North Wales, so our season kind of goes on towards the back end of August. What I'm going to be doing now is moving the boxes around a little bit, condensing the frames down, and just making sure that everything gets drawn out. Okay. In the short term, that means I'm doing nothing. There's no point doing it now because I don't want to restrict the space down, and in those boxes there, I've still got maybe 10 or 15 frames of foundation. So I am just going to let the bees get on with it. They've got a nice brood nest down here. They're past the summer solstice. The chances of them leaving due to swarming has definitely reduced. And all I'm going to do now is I'm just going to continue with my weekly inspections, and I'll probably do it on the weekend when it's much nicer weather as well. Right, I might be laboring the point a little bit with this one, but I do kind of take the comments on board in terms of angry and aggressive colonies. And on the other side of the camera, it's quite easy to look at a colony and say, wow, that is super aggressive colony when you're not taking into account maybe some of the other factors that are in play. One, me being in a bit of a rush, which is never a good excuse. I should use smoke, and I'm going to get back into the habit of using smoke. But also the timing of the video. I would say that's the biggest factor really here. You might not get the impression on the camera, but if I'm going around trying to squeeze these videos into my working week, going out doing them at half 7, 8 o'clock at night when Every single bee in some of these monster colonies is actually in the beehive, then the way they respond to me as a beekeeper is never going to be as good as if I come in in the middle of the day when it's a flow-on and then the bees are looking like this. There's no cheating here. This is the same colony of bees. All of the supers are stacked over there, and all the bees want to do at this time is go out and collect honey because it's a flow-on. They're not interested in me because they're good genetic bees. I'll just flash back up now to last week's episode or the weeks before episode where the bees were angry. They were super angry, the bees. And the reason was is because it was the wrong time of the day and there was a real June gap on the go. And the bees, obviously, when you've got so many bees in a colony like this, they will get defensive at that point. And sometimes you just need to close them up and say, right, that's not the right time to inspect and maybe not the right time to do a YouTube video. So we'll try and do a little bit better. These bees here, very happy with them. See if we can get them all the way through the year without swarming, and maybe I'll do my inspections on a Saturday afternoon as opposed to doing them on a Friday evening.
