Search results

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
  1. F

    Time to re-queen?

    My colony this year has had a primary swarm which went, and now a cast swarm, the bees have been fairly aggressive, up until this point, but not unmanageable, I wouldn't say enjoyable though. During these swarming months however they have become very aggressive, and a right pain to work with...
  2. F

    Cast swarm advice.

    No I don't have a mentor. Would now be a terrible time to re-queen? I have a hive with workers and a swarmed unmated queen. To kill her and introduce one with a nice temperament, would speed up getting back to brood production and give me calmer bees coming through. Thanks for your help.
  3. F

    Cast swarm advice.

    Do you think? They were a little aggressive before the swarming behaviour started, I am just worried the Gene's of this queen will carry it on.
  4. F

    Cast swarm advice.

    They still had live queens in, they hadn't emerged yet, but at least one I saw had a moving queen inside before I squished it. I'm thinking maybe I should re queen, the bees were fairly aggressive, and not fun to work with, I doubt this new queen in the swarmed will be any better.
  5. F

    Cast swarm advice.

    I had a swarm with my original queen about 3 weeks ago. They couldn't be recovered as they went without a trace. I had thinned out the queen cells to just 2, hoping they would make themselves queen right. When removing the queen cells I noticed a queen had emerged from the split queen cell so...
  6. F

    Swarmed hive - queen emerged by removal

    It was definitely a queen, she only emerged in reverse because that was how I had removed her cell from the frame, creating a cavity at her rear. Like I said she didn't emerge herself as such, more I set her free.
  7. F

    Swarmed hive - queen emerged by removal

    My old queen has swarmed, and my hive is currently has no laying queen, and no eggs, some capped brood and drones yet to emerge. I had 7 sealed queen cells which I have thinned to two. I kept the queen cells to try and establish what stage the queens were at. Whilst inspecting one I realised...
  8. F

    Close Call Swarm

    I inspected my hive today after a longer than intended interval of 20 days. In that time the bees had been super productive, they looked like they were preparing for swarming, there were tonnes of drone cells on one of the superframes, and I can only assume queen cells between the brood frames...
  9. F

    Swarm like behaviour

    Yeah, seem pretty healthy, no queen cells, only 2 drone cells, brood is improving and looks fairly healthy, they have decent stores for the time of year. Only thing I can think is, either they were bringing out their dead so to speak (but why to the back) or they were looking for additional ways...
  10. F

    Swarm like behaviour

    So today my bees were hanging around the front and back of the hive, there were dead bees all over the floor and many looking lazy on the ground. They are no where near in a position to swarm, what could be an explanation for this behaviour? Robbing?
  11. F

    Odd shaped bee cells

    My sketch maybe didn't do it justice, I will try get a photo next inspection. But the walls were almost serrated or corrugated, with sharp changes of direction.
  12. F

    Odd shaped bee cells

    Very few to be honest, saw about 10 next to one another. Not sure how you tell if they have been robbed? Is that a sign of it? The frame was fairly close to the middle of both the frame and the hive so probably less likely to be robbing. I'm at a loss.
  13. F

    Odd shaped bee cells

    They look roughly like this, almost as if the cell has folds in the side walls.
  14. F

    Odd shaped bee cells

    I just did an inspection and there were some empty cells which the walls of which looked almost zig-zagged in nature. Has anyone got any idea what this is, is it something to be concerned about?
  15. F

    Bald Brood

    Just did an inspection and it seems around 5 or so cells have been uncapped prematurely, and the white underdeveloped bee is exposed. From research this is likely caused by wax moth larvae, although I didn't see any present. There seems to have been loads of healthy brood hatch out is this an...
  16. F

    Feeding a new swarm

    What do people generally feed a new swarm? Candipoline or sugar syrup?
  17. F

    Hilltop Honey Bee Pollen-Safe for bees?

    Thanks for your advice, I'll get rid of it for sure, some Candipoline arrived today anyway
  18. F

    Hilltop Honey Bee Pollen-Safe for bees?

    I think this is one of those hard to diagnose problems. They have tonnes of stores, I also treated for varroa in the winter and the burden is very low. People have suggested spring dwindle. Thanks for being understanding I just want to learn as much from this experience to become a better...
  19. F

    Hilltop Honey Bee Pollen-Safe for bees?

    I did order some candipol on your advice, hopefully it arrives promptly. Thank you
  20. F

    Hilltop Honey Bee Pollen-Safe for bees?

    I'm sorry, I am relatively new to beekeeping as such I'm trying to figure out if this is something I have caused, if it is something I could have avoided, and if there is anything I can do now to help them.
Back
Top