Because they're brood frames I'm going to leave them be. The bees should repair the damage themselves.
The chewed out wire is very slightly problematic as the tension wires just make handling the frames so much safer, far less chance to drop the comb from the centre.
Under normal circumstances in wild hives, there are no wires, but there are no clumsy bee keepers pulling out their combs to inspect them either.
If it were a honey frame, I'd replace it at the next harvest. Honey frames tend to endure more of a beating, from me anyway, they're easier to get at so I prefer looking at those ones.

On arrival, I thought we'd lost the WBC hive because it had zero activity outside the hive, yet the National was buzzing like a bee hive, so we quickly took the WBC apart to see what the crack was.

We left them free of mice, and with enough pollen to raise an army, there should have been an army.

Ok, so tearing down the mouse house was apparently not much of a hardship for the little bastards.
They came back and apparently went up the inside of the hive, ate all the fake pollen and even took it's plastic packing to use as nesting, the uncovered hive entrance was thusly coated.

We were a bit worried by this, because on first glance we couldn't tell if it were bee carcasses or not, but I quickly decided there wasn't any wings in the debris, so it's more likely something that isn't bees. There's plenty of mouse nesting, so we have to go deeper.

Wow, why don't you just eat everything you can find?


They've done more damage in the last few weeks than they managed over all of winter.

And then there is this stuff on the hive base board.

What do you think it is?
I thought at first it was diseased larvae dead, but Fledge I think got it right with corn. Some of it's not quite as black and rotted as the other bits, but it looks like corn kernels, a special present from our friendly neighbourhood mice.


Ok, so we put the hive back together and tried to remember why we even came here. We came to harvest the honey that we though should be here by now. It probably would be if the mice hadn't returned. And that stuff around the hive entrance we found at first turns out to be crumbed wax from where the mice have been foraging.

So we did a stop gap measure with the hive doors, they've been wedged in place using cardboard now, I don't think the mice will get in again this time, but I have to go back to weekly inspections I think for the next month to make sure that takes.


This is the terrible state the WBC hive is still in, with really low bee activity and occupancy. I'm fairly worried for them now, if the mice get in again, I think that will be the end of them.
The mice had packed so much nesting around the hive doors that the bees really struggled to get in or out. We've cleared that out, the doors are wedged, I don't have any more fake pollen to feed them, they're pretty much on their own now. I'll be up regularly to make sure the mice don't get to mess with them for long.

Their problems don't end there though, no sir. Because we found their honey and we fucking stole it. Yay honey!

It's only 5 frames of honey, but I took it anyway. I replaced those 5 with 3 fresh new frames to make them build the wax up on, obviously they need to understand they have a ton of work to be getting on with, they'd best get busy with it, I don't tolerate failure.

As for the honey, it's possibly complete shit. I suspect a lot of is last seasons honey they didn't need over winter because I over fed them, but I won't know till I extract it. I'm planning on doing that on wednesday maybe, I have to go get my extraction gear out of storage for that, no small task and I don't even know if it fits in my car.

The National Hive, totally different story.
Because of the superior design of the National Hive, it seems more difficult for mice to get in and set up camp, for they have not.

The bees have twatted all their fake pollen. Now they use pollen to feed the larvae, so theoretically, since mice haven't eaten it, there should be thousands of them.


Well they certainly seem to be packed around this hole at the hive top... remember this hive never got over about 7 frame sides last year and they didn't even build up wax in their honey supers, this seems like a decent amount of bees.

Inside, the news gets better.

The honey super was chock bang full of bees, which was how the WBC was at the end of last year, they've built up wax on the frames and started storing honey, though there isn't a single frame that is anything like ready to harvest.


And here's their brood box, bee kerspolsion!
They've literally converted pollen into bees! This colony appears to be full already, if the food stores become full I might even worry they could swarm. Though I don't really have any clue what to do about it if they do, "let it happen" seems fair enough, I will end up with a new queen and somebody else will end up with my old one and a ton of bees.

I've decided I'm bringing the bees to my house. One hive anyway, the other will go to Fledge's mums most likely. It's 7 miles from my house to my bees and frankly, bees that aren't in your own garden are a boring chore. Where's the fun in the bees scaring the piss out of a cat if I'm not there to see it?
I've got to buy a van first. Not for moving the bees, for something else, but once I have it I can move the bees in it.

The landlord says I can't have bees here, but there's a tree out back full of bees, every day on the blossom. So my landlord can fuck right off frankly, I don't pay him thousands of pounds a year to tell me how to lead my life.

EDIT: I forgot, Fledge got stung on the leg today, lol. Baggy trousers...

aww yeah, +rep for the return of the bees

Right, so I got some honey extraction gear out of my storage lock up thing.
I couldn't get the spinner out, it's about the size of an old upright washing machine and the house is currently full of rammel relating to my next Get Rich Quick scheme.

On the left was the first frame I did mounted horizontally and gaining foundational assistance from an inverted beverage dispenser in the hope that the honey falls out of the comb, through that grille, intot the base. As an experiment as it was I just wanted to see what I was doing before trying to photograph it, but here is frame 2 of 5, on the block ready for uncapping the delicious honey.


Uncapping is really this dumb and brutal.

Simply run the long knife across the surface, the bees build wax out further than the wood slats at the top and bottom, so the knife gets all the used cells. Some people use a heated knife for this, but I'm a pretty tough guy you know, so I figured I could get a sharp knife through wax and got a regular knife.


Delicious honey and a right mess. Ok I knew this was going to be messy, but jesus that shit gets everywhere and everywhere it touches it leaves a sticky shitpile that just spreads further and further, usually invisibly. The oddest place I found some was inside Fledge's car on the door handle.


So now both frames are mounted on the upturned glass waiting for the honey to fall out.

The bad news is, this was Wednesday and it hasn't fallen out yet. I need the spinner. I can't get that until at least Tuesday and probably not even then until Saturday.
The honey is way better than I was expecting though, it's nothing like the best honey I ever tasted, but it's way better than the worst.

The wax being cut off won't be going to waste either. It'll be mixed with a bit of paraffin and turned into furniture polish.

so you'd be selling the wax to people for polish? or are you just going to use it for yourself?

Gonna use it myself for now.
Maybe some day I get a clear year and a lush paradise to really farm bees hard and make money that way... we'll see.

i found a bumblebee in my room about 5 mins ago never seen one at night before how likely is it that i have a nest in my house i only ask cos you are like the resident bee expert now

Bumble bees are completely different things entirely. Well, they're both bees, but an A380 and a Spitfire are both airplanes.

Anyway a bumble bee nest shouldn't really be a problem, they nest normally at ground level and the nest is usually tiny compared to honey bees. So even if you had a full bumble bee nest, you're still only talking about 50 bees.

They don't die when they sting though, so don't piss them off. Like honey bees they will only sting you in defence of their nest or if they're left with no alternative but sting. If you find the nest, just leave it alone, they won't stay in it over winter.

Or if you really don't like them, petrol will kill them very quickly indeed, even quicker if you put a match to it.

They're not an aggressive sort and by the age of 11 you should have stroked one because they're slow, cute and furry.

Yea that's how I trapped it picked it up and put its furry ass in a bottle

bumblers are your friends. like bees. both chill bros