Hello,
We checked the hive yesterday and as I imagined, there was a bit of waxmoth. Also one of those frames of the wild brood had a bit of honey in it. It was up against the edge to discourage the queen from laying in it, and it had gone mouldy green. So I see Kathy and Dan were right!
There were eggs, but I didn't see the queen.
I only have a 4 frame nuc box, so I moved them into there - 2 frames of brood, one of honey, and an empty drawn comb. It was drawn in a honey super though. I don't know the difference between the cells. Could that be used for brood?
This week I hope to get some pine and make a second story for the nuc box, and work them gradually to a 10 frame size.
John, there is still a bit of a honey flow on, a slow one. I hope we can extract before the wet. You will have to be faster next time yours swarm! We haven't seen drones here for a long time. I guess that means there is no intention of swarming. The queens are still a year old or younger, except for this new one. I've asked the local beeks if I can go requeening with them, and then maybe I can buy a sparey for this one. Where do you have hives in Central Vic? My relations are all around there, and I wonder any living thing can survive the cold. I planted 3 yellow box trees. So perhaps in 20 years I'll get a teaspoon of liquid gold.
I rode around NSW for a year on my bike, and for a bit of direction, I went to most places Henry Lawson wrote about or lived at, like Leeton, where he went to sober up when prohibition was in force, and Lahey's Creek, about which he wrote a series of stories and poems. My favourite was Ilford. He wrote a story about a house that was never finished there, because the man had gone mad in the Australian bush when his wife died.
Lone