So my last blog described the highs, well lows, of a beekeepers first season. In this post I'll describe a second year. I can't make as many mistakes...can I?
The winter came and went. My two hives increased to five as someone locally sold me a hive with bees in it, a split and two swarms I went to collect in the summer of year one. I eagerly opened up my hives at the end of March to find all had made it through the winter. I was later in the season to find out how good my swarms were. Keep reading to find out!
The hive and bees I'd bought late autumn was an unknown. It was cheap enough to have a punt at being £60 including the hive, supers, and a feeder. I'd inspected them and found high Varroa loads and treated them with OA vape.

My original BMH F1 Buckfast queen was a massive colony immediately when I inspected them, my second BMH colony wasn't as large just about filling a 6 frame nuc box and hadn't eaten as much over winter, the two local swarms were quite small along with the colony pictured.
I was immediately concerned as my BMH hive was so large with massive amounts of stores the queen didn't have much room to lay as they'd got so many stores. I asked Laurence in one of the live Q&A's about what to do. He'd recommended putting a frame of stores in-between the brood and bruising the stores which I did in April.
I went into the colony the next week to find the frame completely cleaned out and eggs laid within it! I was amazed as the amount of work the bees had done and how simply it was resolved with a bit of knowledge.