A second hive, and a water puzzle

We have taken the plunge and bought a second hive from Thornes - mainly because Liam didn't want to spend his birthday at the Ruishton Beekeepers Auction.

It has arrived and I am waiting for a nice day to sit outside and apply Linseed oil and to build some frames. I have been keeping an eye on the hive entrance and there seems to be a lot of activity on sunny days with bees taking in a lot of pollen. I am also enjoying the sight of my bees on the flowers in my garden, and I think for the first time I understand the point of all those BBKA leaflets telling you which plants / shrubs / trees to plant as it is somehow very satisfying. (The picture above is of a crocus about ten foot from the hive).


I have been slightly puzzled by the large numbers of bees ignoring a 5 foot high water feature (fountain and pool) bang smack in the middle of the garden to visit a water butt right the other side of the garden from their hive. How do they know it contains water? The lid is on and there are no obvious signs. And why dont they like the pool?

Following David's advice we have put a bowl of water on top of the butt with a stone in it. This will hopefully stop the bees going into the water butt and drowning. However, they seem to be happy to ignore it and keep burrowing under the lid. Very mysterious.

On the next sunny and warm day, we are going to try and find the Queen to check to see if she is marked (and the same one as last year) or not (in which case, we are going to have to try and mark her - gulp.) This is the precursor to starting Robin's artificial swarm method. Watch this space...