Made with Xara Web Designer Privacy |  Copyright 2009/10 | All rights reserved | 25 Woodlands Walk, Harrogate HG2 7BB SITEMAP An Inspector Called, this one wasn’t a J B Priestley character he was the Regional Bee Inspector May started with showery weather but the bees were gathering lots of pollen and nectar.  Some of the Queen cells that I grafted very small larvae into on the 29th of April had been accepted and I have been busy making starter mating hives/nucs for the new Queens to start out in before transferring them to a full size Warré. The Bee Inspectors visit went ok but for a few minutes it was a bit tense as he checked a couple of larvae  he wasn’t too happy with.  Foulbrood is not too far away so I was relieved to not have it.  The feeling was that the larvae were in the early stages of chalkbrood, which is in many colonies but strong bees cope with it. Now it’s just a case of waiting to see how many Queens emerge and getting them started off in a nuc so that they can fly to mate before settling down and building their own colony.  I’ve started some nucs in National boxes because the bees were making Queen Cells on the frames so I created nucs to hopefully stop them swarming. Once the National Nucs are settled and the queen starts laying I will transfer them to Warré hives. The photo (right) shows some bees setting up home in my first Warré hive.  I cut some stores and some brood with a sealed Queen Cell from a National and fastened them to two bars with elastic bands, the photo was taken the following morning. If you would like to follow their progress send me an email to receive the ‘Friends’ monthly email complete with links to the new bits. Regional Bee Inspectors are employed by the Governmeent and their job is to examine as many bee colonies as they can find and check on the health of the bees. You can go to the Bee Base website to find more information. At present Beekeepers don’t have to register so it makes their job rather difficult, searching out beekeepers. to check their bees. They need to check the bees for European or American Foul Brood as well as other pests such as varroa and small hive beetle.