The beginning of year two for the Glengall bees

We met to do a couple of jobs at the garden on the first of March. Lukasz painted the inside of the spare hive with shellac (I was surprised the bottle of liquid had a chemical smell - the shellac is mixed with spirit).

Lucasz paints shellac onto a divider board

In the shed, Alastair, Ann, Jan, Jenny, Josephine and I prepared some new top bars. We cut some strips of foundation layer and placed them in the gaps, held in place with melted wax.

Strips of foundation layer held in place with melted beeswax

We also prepared a variant, where we glued triangular sections of wood to the underside of the top bars, then dribbled melted wax along the sharp top edge. The idea is to encourage the bees to build their comb nice and straight, so that we will be able to lift and move each bar separately.

Gluing the triangular sections of wood onto the top bars

It was fairly mild that day and we discovered the garden's newest resident, a fox, sunning itself on the grass.