Bee inspection

The bee inspector came round this morning to see if my bees were healthy. I was a bit nervous about this because there is a serious bee affliction called American Foulbrood that is common in this area. It is a bacterial disease that attacks the baby bees before they hatch out. If you find AFB in your hive, you have to pour petrol into your hive at night to kill all the bees and then burn the whole hive in a pit in the ground. Fair enough as the bees apparently do not recover and will just spread AFB to other hives. So, faced with the potential prospect of losing my one hive, I felt a bit like you do when sat in the doctor's waiting room. Ian has 10 year's experience of bee-keeping and has a DECA certificate that shows that he can recognise AFB. He declared my hive to be healthy apart from having the less deadly varroa mite. I will need to get some insecticide strips in to treat the varroa, but that is preferable to losing the whole lot. It was great to watch someone who knew what was going on. He re-organised the frames to make the bees happier and showed me lots of useful tips for how to make my bee-keeping better. Thanks very much Ian! The pictures show the inspection, frames of pollen, nectar and brood (bee babies). If you look carefully you might also be able to see the queen. She has a longer body than the workers and so her wings look shorter.