Saving the small colonies

Now that we've managed to get a first inspection performed, we know that Thyme is doing well with plenty of bees, brood and stores. Not so lucky with Heather and Poppy as both had very few bees and just a couple of small patches of brood in Poppy. They both also looked to be close to starvation even though they are taking the fondant and pollen patties we gave them earlier on. We re-arranged the frames in Poppy and gave them a couple of spare frames that had plenty of stores on to help them along.

So the decision has been made - we're going to merge them together to try to give them a fighting chance of survival. The queen in Heather will be sacrificed as there is no brood or eggs present and she is still proving to be illusive.

Merging colonies together