Rinse and Repeat

A 9am visit to the hive to add yet another box to the tower. On Wednesday they were dropping hints that they felt overcrowded, and might think about swarming. They had prepared some 'queen cells' - downward facing cells, often on the edges of the frame. The queen had laid in them and the workers had added the creamy, nutritious exudate on which young larvae are fed (the same substance fed to all larvae, but called 'royal jelly' when it is fed, in larger quantities, to queen larvae)

I gave them a hard stare and physically removed the cells, cutting them out of the comb. Beekeeping manuals are unanimous in saying this is a waste of time - if the bees have got so far into the swarming cycle that they have prepared such 'charged' queen cells, they will not be dissuaded, and will simply build new cells. I was not convinced; something outside of logical analysis left me feeling they were not fully committed. 

Overcrowding can provoke a swarming response; giving them more space, along with the task of creating yet more comb, is my gambit to counteract the urge. As of this morning, two days later, they have not rebuilt the cells. I may be vindicated (but diligent inspection is still essential); time will tell

This is a beekeeper's-eye view of the hive being reassembled (the bee entrance is facing the sun). The central tower is a stack of four equally-sized boxes, with a deeper box below them, partly obscured by the outer casing. The bottom box is the brood area; the four supers are for honey; the stack is topped by a 'crown board' cover

Four more sections of outer casing are on the floor, waiting to be threaded over the tower, to create an interlocking stack with the classic 'pagoda' profile. A roof is waiting out of shot to sit on the casing and make everything wratherproof. The smoker, of course, comes home with me!