Hive A is a little embarrassing. It got too tall. I over wintered it with a National deep box and five supers. There were reasons, of course. Now has come the time to reduce it to a sensible height.

A little about those reasons first.

I stopped putting foundation in my hives a while ago (see Frames without foundation). Foundation seems unnecessary to the low intervention bee keeper. Its principal benefit is to make extraction and inspection easier. I outlined in the article how shallow frames can be extracted without wired foundation. Inspection is also much the same. You just have to be slower and more gentle.

I took the roof off Hive E today. This is the late swarm from 2016 which is housed in a small derelict greenhouse.

I had put an insulating box between the brood box and the roof. I'd seen ants going up and down the hive. What I hadn't expected was that the ants had set up a nest in the insulated roof. There were lots of black ants, some eggs and a few immature grubs.

I can see now that the insulated roof would be ideal for an ant nest. Defensible; warm, well ventilated and with an immense food store nearby.