But on Saturday the weather was so nice and the forecast good for Sunday that I decided to feed one more time and then treat on Sunday. However there were 5 bees with deformed wings on the ground in front of the hive trying to fly, a sign that Varroa levels maybe too high.
Too high levels of Varroa can lead to the colony not surviving the winter!
I opened the hive on Sunday with the intention of doing a full inspection and hopefully get on last look at the Queen before leaving them be until March. Horror, the bees had managed to break into the feeder and floating in the sugar solution must have been over 100 bees in various stages of drowning! I took the feeder tray and eke off and set to with the inspection, would get back to the drowning bees at the end.
It was very obvious the bees had been busy with all that sugar solution they had been eating, lots of stores and new honey comb, as I came to the frames in the centre that I had not increased in size to brood and a half I found I couldn't remove the frames, the bees had build so much comb and bonded it to the sides of the hive that the frames were stuck fast, I didn't realise this until I forced the first frame out only to see a big lump of comb fall to the floor of the hive and another section tear apart with brood becoming exposed! Time to stop the inspection before I did any more damage, I hadn't seen the Queen so will now have to sweat it out until the New Year and hope I didn't harm her in my clumsy inspection!
So frames all put back, Apiguard tray installed and now time to see how many bees I could salvage from the sugar solution. I hope I saved about 20 of them but will never know for sure, I fished those still moving out and put them on the hive landing board in the hope that the other worker bees would clean the solution off them.
At the end I was covered in sticky solution and very popular with the bees and wasps, I beat a hasty retreat to the house with sticky buckets etc to clean up.
Fingers crossed all will be ok, don't like the idea of not feeding them, so I've made some sugar fondant, which is currently drying on a radiator, I'm told you shouldn't feed and treat at same time but will give it a try.
If they survive the winter I will have some fun in March trying to sort out the mess I have allowed the bees to make of the hive! But I have the winter to work out the best plan of attack, at the moment I am thinking that perhaps I should revert to ordinary sized brood frames, but I'm sure i will change my mind many times! :-)
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