Hi Vanessa, Just been reading everyones emails from the past week or so, everything getting exciting now then lol !! Glad your all seeing the wonderful complicated (and somethimes expensive as Harvey has seen, hope the finger nails grow back soon!!) of the bee hive. I hope my wife does not catch me on here as I am on hliday and not meant to be checking my emails, but never mind eh?? The drop in stores could be the lateness of what is known as the 'june gap' when there is a distinctive drop off in the ammount of nectar coming into the hives, this results in the bees using all their own stores as it is not possible to forage for nectar. At this time if there does not appear to much stores, or nectar coming in, it is advisable to put some feed onto the bees in order to maintain their numbers, the queens eggying rate and prevent starving. If nectar sources are found, you will notice that the bes will hardly touch the feed, if however on the other hand there is no nectar available, the feed will go down quiet quickly. It is always best to make feed available if you notice a dramatic drop in stores in the hive. Bees can strip a sfull super of 20lbs of honey in 48 hours if they are starving!!. Hope this is of help, sorry that I could not have helped you earlier Harvey. I am planning on putting a talk on in Sept / Oct about the bee farming and management out here in Cyprus, its been an interesting week so far (looking at bees and talking to beekepers!) Lukily the wifes parents live out here so she is happy with me doing this while her and Isable spend time with the grand parents!! Speak soon Ben ________________________________ From: riseholmebees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of VANESSA HUGHES Sent: Tue 27/07/2010 9:15 AM To: riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [riseholmebees] Re: queen introduction hello Harvey, so pleased to hear it all seems to be going well. Fingers crossed and you will have 2 colonies to contend with next year! Which seems to be essential doesn't it when you read some of the things that need doing when it all gets interesting! I have been a little worried about my large hive this week as their stores seem to have gone down alarmingly-nothing in the brood box at all, but they are still so busy working, lots of willowherb near by, that I hope they will sort things out themselves without me having to intervene. I hope all goes well with your treatment today, if there is anything I can do let me know. It would me nice sometime to have a look at how things are going with your hives, we could compare notes! Vanessa --- On Tue, 27/7/10, HARVEY HOWSON <harvey.howson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: From: HARVEY HOWSON <harvey.howson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [riseholmebees] queen introduction To: riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Tuesday, 27 July, 2010, 7:32 HI all I checked on the hive yesterday to which I introduced a new queen. The queen had been released from the cage and their was 1/2 off eggs present in the hive so up to now it seems to have worked. The nuc I have removed the frame feeder and replaced it with 2 new frames with foundation and stopped feeding as the 3 frames already in their are crammed with honey so by putting in the 2 frames I hope will encorage them to draw them out and also give the new queen providing she mates sucsessfully somwhere to lay if. mating is not sucessful then I will transfer the frames of stores back to the original hive. All going well up to now. Harvey