I had a little cast swarm in the garden at 8am this morning. It was about the size of an orange. I suspect it is from the carniolan casts I collected 4 week's ago, but not 100% sure as I lent the queen from one of them to a beebuddy who was desperate and in the other I marked and clipped the queen. I'll look more closely tonight if I can find a way of doing so without attracting the attention of the neighbours who worry about insects. I was only keeping them in the garden until I was confident they were disease free. Given they are carniolans, and so prone to swarming, if the cast was from either of these already tiny colonies, they are defintiely getting moved out of the garden as I don't want anymore neighbour problems. I thought they wouldn't swarm because there were so few bees.
I saw the queen, that didn't look like a virgin, she was too big, and picked her out of the cast and put her in a mini nuc, with some of the bees, but she flew out again, but second time lucky and she and the bees were all in there when I left for work. It will be interesting to see whether she did come from one of the casts I collected and I can't wait to get back to see if they are still there.
I saw the queen, that didn't look like a virgin, she was too big, and picked her out of the cast and put her in a mini nuc, with some of the bees, but she flew out again, but second time lucky and she and the bees were all in there when I left for work. It will be interesting to see whether she did come from one of the casts I collected and I can't wait to get back to see if they are still there.
