This morning I worked on colony 13. I hope that this is the last time I have to make a significant reorganisation of their hive. I hope that I've corrected for the mistakes and difficulties which developed from having a nucleus roof with comb attached.
This is a summary of the colony before and after I did the work this morning:
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| roof | |
| roof | crown board |
| crown board | C Hive body |
| empty super containing comb cut from the nucleus roof | Ashforth feeder containing comb cut from nucleus roof |
| B Hive body (including Queen and brood) | empty super containing frames |
| queen excluder | queen excluder |
| C Hive body | B Hive Body (including Queen and brood) |
The main problem before the reorganisation was that the brood nest was above the Queen excluder and so on the wrong side for Queens and Drones to leave the hive. Another possible problem was that the brood nest was too far away from the hive entrance. I have seen that brood nests which are too far away from the entrance may be more vulnerable to robbing. This happened to Colony 9.
I thought through my operations carefully before I started work. Even then, I initially left the queen excluder in the wrong place. I moved the B Hive body and the super above it off the hive. I then removed C Hive body and replaced it with the B Hive body.
When I had chopped the comb out of the nucleus roof I had laid it flat in the super above the B Hive body. All the brood had hatched from this so I scraped it off the top bars and put it into the feeder box.
I assembled hive with an empty super above the brood nest. I hope that the bees will move the honey down from the feeder box and from the comb in C Hive body into this super. We'll see whether that happens.