Colony 'A'

The reason this colony is known as 'A', is not because it is my best colony.  It is my best colony, but that is not the reason, it is because it has been around for so long.  The Queen is very old, a 'blue', and yet the colony came through the winter on eight frames of brood and quickly rose to eleven, the same as last year.  It also collects more honey than any other colony, it currently has four supers on, three of which are full and partly capped, and this despite providing frames of brood to make up nucs and help other colonies grow.  It is also the colony that I have taken the larvae from to start breeding from, the first Queens hatched on June 8th.  I'll know in a couple of weeks if they successfully mated.

As you can see from the photo above, it is heaving with bees and there are four supers full of bees as well.  They also happen to be the mildest of bees, a lovely temperament.  If only all colonies were like this one, sadly not.  Some of the swarms I have collected over the last week or so are the nastiest things imaginable, the sooner my new Queens are able to take over a colony the better.