Testing observation hives
Yesterday, James Wilson, a couple of students and myself set up one of the observation hives for a test run. James had set aside some nucs for Maggie and my joint experiment from which we could create a queenright split.
The queen eluded us, and in the end we decided to pack-up and let the bees sort that out. We packed up the hive and drove to the bee lab.
In the lab, the set-up worked pretty well, too. The tubes to the outside were connected in no time, and the hive sat solidly on the desk. By sheer luck, we also ended up having the queen in the observation hive!
In the evening, I returned to the lab to check on the bees. There was no leak, no bees escaped from the hive, and most importantly for our experiments, the bees were dancing: