A hive inspection shows bees already moving into a newly added super and storing abundant nectar. The presenter rearranges frames to optimize the brood nest and expects the colony to be much stronger by the time his co-host returns.
Welcome back to episode 6 of Zane's First Nuc, and guess what? Zane is not here yet again. Poor effort on your behalf there, Zane, but I will do the video for you. I'll finish off the series, don't worry about that. Zane will be back next week. We love you, Zane. Let's get inside though. I had to pop up here. It is kind of week 6.5, I would say. Here is Monday, it's the bank holiday Monday today, and I kind of didn't do one last week, but I didn't want to do another week with Zane and kind of miss that period. So what I did is I came back normal time, I was here and quickly put the super on because I think the bees needed it. And to be honest, I just didn't want to be that guy that when Zane comes back and says the bees swarmed because you didn't put a super on, and I'm like, oh, that would have been very, very embarrassing. So I hedged my bets a little bit. I came in 1 week after, so bang on week 6, put the super on, and I'm not expecting the bees to be in it now, but we're kind of on week 6.5, and then we'll do week 7 when Zane comes back later on in the week. So enough talking, let's get inside, see how the bees are getting on. So before I put the super on, I came back and checked, and the bees had cleared out all of that syrup, which is really, really good. And how about that, Zane? Here we go, you've got bees already up in the super, and that is important because there is a huge flow on at the moment, so I didn't want you to miss out on that flow. But it also goes to show the expansion that must have taken place downstairs. So before we get there, let's have a look here, Zane. You've got kind of half a frame of bees there. They're working it even on the outer frames, just clearing everything up. Bird frame, lots of bees. I can feel a little bit of weight in that center frame. There is really good amount of nectar in that one, Zane. This one too, like, that is good amount of weight to be feeling at this point in the year, especially with a colony so small as this one here. So then on some frames, got bees on one side, nothing on the other side, and then you can see the bees are trying to work it out, but they're just focusing on putting the nectar away at the moment because they've got drawn comb and that is their priority as opposed to drawing anything else. So I'm really glad that that's happened. I'm glad that the bees are up in the supers, and it goes to show, doesn't it, Zane? You blink and look what happens. So it'd be interesting to see what's going to happen downstairs now, because obviously a lot of the bees are working up there. Might expect not to see a huge amount of bees down here, but I'm interested personally to see what they've done on those side frames. I think they must have still shunned them, which is exactly what they've done. Okay, cool, that's good news. So looking to see if I can see the queen. Can't see her. Shake that off. Okay, so I'm going to give you a frame-by-frame update. I'll start on the outer frame, which is this red frame, which the bees still have not touched. Next frame along, the bees on that side are drawing it out, and then they're working it nice on that side as well. So simple one for me, I'm going to take this red frame, move it in one like that because the bees can cope with it, and then place this one back closest to the camera. Onto frame 3 now, and we've got a very nice big strong Solid frame of stores. Spacing is a little bit skew-whiff on that one, something that we will need to sort out later on when you're back, Zane. So I'm actually going to go and reverse exactly what I did because putting big chunky frames next to foundation is something that you never ever want to do. So I'm going to take my chunky frame, that's going to go on the edge somewhere that I can manage that space a little bit better, and my red frame is going to go one frame in. So red frame comes frame 3. I'll show you it from the top so you can understand it in a Now, next frame is the frame that has the queen on. It is a frame that's completely full of eggs and larvae, and I'm just going to put that queen straight back down there. Next up, beautiful frame of capped brood. Another beautiful frame of capped brood. Another frame of capped brood. Decent amount of pollen in there, plenty of capped brood as well. This is a previously checkerboarded frame that the bees have worked very nicely. This frame here contains lots of nectar, a decent amount of stores, and I'm just going to show you the final frame there, which is a frame of foundation, which I'm going to bring in now towards the center of the brood nest. So there we go. It is very, very warm today, but you'll never hear me complaining. I love the heat, and the bees really do like that heat as well. So was I right? Was I wrong previously? Okay, I was probably wrong. Maybe we should have put the super on last week and hedged our bets because It wasn't gonna do any damage. And maybe I should have listened to Zane. Maybe Zane's impatience was the way forward last week. But disaster averted. I came in, I did it before it mattered. We got the super on. Zane, you are gonna love seeing this colony next week. It's gonna be completely transformed from when you saw it in episode 5. We'll keep it going all the way throughout the season. Fingers crossed we can get through without any swarms whatsoever. If you enjoy this style of content, this series here will be moving over to my brand new channel, 14 Day Beekeeper. There's a link in that corner. Go and subscribe. That is gonna be the place for all things beekeeping education.
