[kevinp]

Hi all

I now have two of my hives populated with bees the first hive had a nuc installed on the 18th of june. Which is the hex hive on the right



I did my first proper check on the hive this saturday and found them to be really busy, the bees came on seven frames and have now moved over to the three topbars and have built themselves natural comb from these.





they are building and filling these so fast that I have been advised to put my first uplift on the hive, this will not have frames in but will contain top bars from which the bees can build comb from.

The second hive the Warée hive had a nuc installed yesterday it all went very well we did have to chop the lugs down by about 20mm to get them to fit the hive but I knew this when the hive was made. I just chopped  them off with some loppers. The bees for this came on five very nicely filled out frames containing some very mild bees. Again we put the frames in and filled the rest of the box with top bars with starter strips, this hive is slightly different as the bees were put into the top box and then they work their way down. Again they will build their comb onto top bars fitted with starter strips.





It didn't take them long to get out and about collecting pollen.

I did get my first sting on saturday and it still has not gone down yet, always remember to tuck your gloves in

[Kate and her Ducks]

Bad luck on the sting but the bees look like they are doing well (although couldn't get all the pics to load properly on my stupid work puter!).

Will be really interested to see how yours get on as your set up is quite different to mine. I just have standard Nationals although my Mum has a topbar hive.