A beekeeper inspects a small Buckfast swarm caught in a nuc box at Richards apiary. The queen is mated and the brood pattern is strong, but comb on the box bottom signals the colony is running out of space and may swarm again soon.
What is that in Richard's apiary? Everybody's bees swarm, and Richard's got a nuc box in a tree with a random swarm in it. So let's get inside and see what is in it. So Richard said this was a small cast swarm that's been up there for a few weeks now. I've no idea what to expect, but good entrance activity, which is always nice to see. Doesn't tell you anything, but just good to see. So looking in from the top, lots of bees in there. Feeling the weight, very heavy, very, very heavy. I bet there's some good honey in here. I'm interested to see if there's a good queen in there and to see if she is mated. So you can tell no one's been in here for a few weeks, really well stuck down. So you can see the bees there, plenty of honey in this one. Let's get a couple of frames out and see if we've got a mated queen. So for anybody watching at home, this is an F2 Buckfast colony that was mated a good few weeks ago. Could be angry. Everyone says F2 Buckfasts are really crazy angry, except where you do not have lots of AMM drones in the mix, which we do not have in this apiary. They look pretty chilled out to me. Wow. A few things that I can tell you about this frame. One, the queen is perfectly mated. Two, they are exceptionally calm bees. Three, they are running out of space. You can see the additional comb being built on the bottom there. When people tell you F2 Buckfast are angry, you don't always have to believe them. This is an F2 Buckfast queen and they are definitely not angry bees. So I just handed that frame off to Richard. I don't like putting frames down if I've not seen the queen yet because she can kind of like scuttle off somewhere. But wow, they really do need some space in here. I've not seen any eggs yet, so this could be a swarm and they've gone again because they ran out of space. Huge amount of comb. Look at that comb being built at the bottom. If you're seeing comb like that, it means that the bees need more space, so you do have to take action. So although this comb here at the bottom normally would signify a swarm, it's It's getting very, very late in the season. Richard is confident we'll see the queen in here, even though there's not a huge amount of space for her to lay. But look at all this brood. This colony is in very good shape. Got another wonderful frame of brood there. I've not really been looking for the queen, but what we do have tucked down at the bottom of those cells there is very nicely laid eggs. And couple that with the fact that we've got an incredible brood pattern, we know we've got a mated queen in here. So I'm amazed. Super calm colony of bees. Can't find the queen. I can see eggs, but there are a lot of bees in there, so I'm not going to leave them out for too long. But really nice to find such a beautiful swarm inside a tree. That really is free beans.
