Swarm scores..........
Lost......2
Lost and found.......2
Caught new.......1
The bee inspector visited on Friday and alas discovered 2 of my colonies had swarmed since my last visit...........

Generally though my bees are healthy and strong colonies, with very little evidence of varroa trouble....I say very little evidence, everyone has varroa, it's how much damage is noticeable on the bees which is the real pointer to trouble. I've put a half sized frame into most of my colonies, on the bottom of that frame the bees should draw out brace comb, which is generally drone sized, the queen then lays drone eggs in there. Varroa prefer to lay and hatch in drone comb, so this hanging pices of amazing natural beauty can, when it is sealed, be cut off. This will drastically reduce the varroa future content in the hive, it also will somewhat reduce the amount of drones and also give a small supply of wax. I see it as plus, plus plus!
One of my mentors who is on the council swarm catching list, gave me one to catch on Saturday as he was too busy, It was a nice little cast, hanging tightly on a rose bush in someone's front garden, it was raining hard so they dropped in the box with very few fliers. I brought it home and put in a nuc. Spotted the queen yesterday.
Despite the fact that I want to reduce my hive numbers to 6........I started this year with 8, have given two colonies away and now have 10.........how does that work then
Itsybitsy