Yesterday I quickly knocked up a warre box and floor so that I can give my new swarm more room. The Svea bait hive I baited them in neatly fits directly over a warre box with a little overhang one side and a little underhang on the adjacent side. This makes it easy, as I don't now need to make a transfer board to interleave between the two different boxes. I actually used an empty Svea hive, sat it on top of my new warre box and floor next to the swarm and simply lifted the frames from the old svea into the new. The bees were extremely gentle and had built out most of the combs in the Svea. I have not yet made a warre quilt but I will quite soon hopefully and get it on. These Svea hives are meant to have another box around them, similar to a WBC hive so are made from quite thin wood. The hot temps recently has had the bees bearding quite a lot. The setup is only temporary as I intend to make a surround for several warre hives (number yet to be decided). Here in these photos you can see the warre with empty Svea sat on top and when the transfer has just been completed. I will leave the empty box and boards by the entrance for a few hours in order for the stragglers to find their way into their new home. The new combs were full of nectar, it seems her majesty has not yet come back into lay. I am pretty sure this swarm from the size of it was a prime swarm and was not headed by a virgin.
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