I have 3 hives now, my little hive fought on and on, I made a mistake of putting syrup onto the frame and then opening it to give them some water with this I watched the Queen come to the top and fly away, so I am guessing, they have been planing it, as they did not have stores, what they had, was being pulled away, by robbers I guess, and they could not been feeding her to be able to fly. A day later after this I saw a cluster of bees by one of the hives, once I “raked” it I saw the Queen in the middle so I put her and the few bees surrounding her into a Nuc, left them over night, took the Nuc and stuck it away from the rest into the garden, this is their second day there is a few bees flying in and out, I am going to have a look on Friday, they are forecasting rain on Saturday so I thought if they are in there and working I will help them out a little. Most people would think this as a waste of time, I am reluctant to just let them die.
The rest of the hives have been treated with Hive Clean for the las time on the 12th of September, and the Apivital feed seems to be going down Hive E has had 10kg, Hive C 5 kg, Hive A has 8 kg.I give them 2 kg and they usually take it in two days, depending on the night temperature.
Want to have a look at them before the weather changes just to make sure things are ok, I believe I had some robber bees trying to get in, I have to reduced entrances now and the colonies are relatively strong and not allowing anyone to go past which is a really good sighn as I always seemed to have suffered with robbing. The raspberry patch next to the hives seems to be the favourite place over the last week or so for the bees, they are really enjoying the autumnal raspberries. We shall enjoy the fruits thanks to them.
I will keep you posted on the progress.