Accidental Queen inclusion in Colony 12

When I added a super to Colony 12 yesterday I discovered a problem -- presumably another one of my mistakes.

Last season I fed them and left an extra super on the hive over winter. I put it above a Queen excluder. Yesterday I opened the hive to put another super on and found that there were Drones above the excluder. Somehow the Queen had made her way into the super before I put it together.in

Very high Varroa count for city centre hives

I did a 24 hour Varroa drop count yesterday. This involves clearing the removable hive floor and counting the Varroa mites which drop out of the hive over a 24 hour period.

I counted

  • 15 Varroa on the floor of Colony 12;
  • 16 Varroa on the floor of Colony 4;
  • 30 Varroa on the floor of Colony 8.

These are very high numbers of mites for this time of year.