I saw the first worker wasp of the season. She was hovering near Colony 1.

Earlier this season we saw a lot of Queen wasps. This suggests that it may be a waspy year. There have also been lots of aphids for the wasps to feed on. Wasps require mostly protein early in the seasons which they use to feed their brood. They switch increasingly to needing sugar during the season, which is why they try to rob honey bee colonies.

Colony 1 has been very busy. I opened the top today to find three full supers. The bees were even building above the crown board and would very soon have run out of space.

I lifted off two of the three supers and put two new ones in their place. Then I put a Canadian Clearer Board and replaced the two full ones on top. In a day or two there will be an early harvest.

Colony 1 has been continuously occupied for over 6 years. Every spring, except 2018, there have been bees crawling around outside the hive -- stricken with Deformed Wing Virus or some other paralysing virus. These bees became food for Sparrows.

This year seems worse than previous years. There appear to be more bees crawling and for longer. This might not be worse than usual but it feels it. In April it was mostly Drones which were crawling around. Now it is more likely to be workers.