FreeFall
House Bee
- Joined
- May 25, 2011
- Messages
- 358
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- North Wiltshire nr. Lyneham
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 6 plus a few nucs
Second year beek with just the one colony... I'd be interested in all comments, ideas and criticisms on the events below.
I finally got a weather window for a decent inspection on Friday and was confronted by lots of swarm cells, both open and sealed. I was cursing myself as the general consensus is that if there are sealed cells they have already gone but there were a LOT of bees. After taking some deep breaths and being methodical I did eventually find the queen, with most of her white dot rubbed off, so was very pleased she hadn't left yet.
So, as I have been researching AS techniques, helped in no small part by people on here, I had kit ready to go and a plan in my mind. I did the following:
- New BB on original site, into which I placed the frame with the queen on, a frame of drawn comb and filled the rest with foundation. Honey super with a frame or two of wet stores on top (this was on the bottom originally as I was feeding syrup the previous week because they had nothing).
- Original brood+half next to it, facing same way and about 4 feet away. I went through this and left two charged cells as I wasn't sure if one of them was actually uncapped or had been damaged when taking the frame out [pic 1] (stuck to frame underneath maybe). Broke down remaining cells except for two lovely looking ripe, sealed ones...[pic 2]
- Place these sealed cells into a nuc on the frame + bees + shook in another good frame of bees. I wanted to do this for insurance in case the other cells in main BB came to nothing. I dummied it down with a frame feeder either side, popped the nuc inside a WBC body and packed out with insulation to keep it nice and warm.
So, by Friday night I was feeling quite pleased with myself. I was well on the way to the increase that I wanted and I'd managed to get to them before they swarmed.
>===========================<
Saturday I spent most of the day around the hives, strimming and weeding the garden. There was a lot of activity but it seemed like foraging behaviour on a fine day, the warmest we've had since the March spell. There were a lot of orientation flights on both the parent and the AS and many bees flying - I assumed that at 20° the nearby OSR had finally come to fruition as many returning bees had a yellow spot on their head (sure I've read on here that is a sign). Nothing that I would have thought was a swarm, although I've never seen one first hand. So...
Early evening I was sat down with a cider, admiring my handiwork when I noticed some bees buzzing around a big old dog rose. Odd I thought as it hasn't flowered yet - so I made my way over and
a cluster the size of a football hanging there! [pic 3]
I had a quick peek in the AS on the original site and there still seemed to be the same amount in there as when I checked late Friday evening, the parent and nuc still looked the same. I was however pretty sure they were mine so guessed they'd left the AS. After much fighting with the gnarly old dog rose and a blunt pair of secateurs I had enough room to bang them down into a box [pic 4]. I must have got over 3/4 of them but after leaving them for 10 minutes it was apparent they were re-joining the cluster. Plan B was to put the box upside-down over the top of them and smoke them up [pic 5] , this also failed miserably - eventually I laid an old brood frame over them [pic 6] and each time it filled up I shook it into an empty BB and closed it up - eventually they went in of their own accord so must have got the queen at some point.
I waited until the sun was setting, picked them up and put them in the line with the other three hives, slipped a QE under the BB, reduced the entrance and left them to it.
>===========================<
So, another quick look on Sunday, late afternoon:
1. AS is still busy, orientation flights and pollen coming in - had a peek to see if I could see HM and instead saw a capped queen cell - it looks like an emergency cell though, drawn out of the worker cells, half way up and to one side of the frame, with a right-angle bend in it instead of being straight. No photo as yet but will try for one later.
2. Parent hive not so busy but still orientation and pollen, plenty of bees visible through glass quilt looking down on half-brood super. Not opened up.
3. Collected swarm are still there, I haven't open them up for fear of HM legging it. Will give another day and then feed 1:1 as they are on foundation and one drawn frame.
4. Nuc doesn't look happy - very few bees, only a couple of hundred at most, warming a small patch of sealed brood in the very top corner of the frame. Open brood looks to have been chilled and died. No interest by the bees in the two sealed queen cells. - I guess what happened here is that I populated it with flying bees and not nurse bees, which have now gone back to the AS, although I did block the entrance with grass for 24 hrs.
>===========================<
So now I need to make a plan. I'm presuming that the two sealed cells in the nuc have had it - so I should break them down, check for any more and then return that frame plus the few remaining bees to the parent colony, which will hopefully still be bringing on the open queen cells I left them.
I'd like to get a strong colony on double brood for the main flow this year (if we have one ) so am wondering about breaking down the QC in the AS hive and reuniting the swarm with it, maybe after I've fed them for a while and they've drawn out the foundation.
Thanks if you've managed to read my ramblings this far - it's been useful to write it out. I know there will be many ideas on where I go from here and I want to hear them all and then make a decision myself.
I'm thick skinned, so no need to hold back...
Nick
.
I finally got a weather window for a decent inspection on Friday and was confronted by lots of swarm cells, both open and sealed. I was cursing myself as the general consensus is that if there are sealed cells they have already gone but there were a LOT of bees. After taking some deep breaths and being methodical I did eventually find the queen, with most of her white dot rubbed off, so was very pleased she hadn't left yet.
So, as I have been researching AS techniques, helped in no small part by people on here, I had kit ready to go and a plan in my mind. I did the following:
- New BB on original site, into which I placed the frame with the queen on, a frame of drawn comb and filled the rest with foundation. Honey super with a frame or two of wet stores on top (this was on the bottom originally as I was feeding syrup the previous week because they had nothing).
- Original brood+half next to it, facing same way and about 4 feet away. I went through this and left two charged cells as I wasn't sure if one of them was actually uncapped or had been damaged when taking the frame out [pic 1] (stuck to frame underneath maybe). Broke down remaining cells except for two lovely looking ripe, sealed ones...[pic 2]
- Place these sealed cells into a nuc on the frame + bees + shook in another good frame of bees. I wanted to do this for insurance in case the other cells in main BB came to nothing. I dummied it down with a frame feeder either side, popped the nuc inside a WBC body and packed out with insulation to keep it nice and warm.
So, by Friday night I was feeling quite pleased with myself. I was well on the way to the increase that I wanted and I'd managed to get to them before they swarmed.
>===========================<
Saturday I spent most of the day around the hives, strimming and weeding the garden. There was a lot of activity but it seemed like foraging behaviour on a fine day, the warmest we've had since the March spell. There were a lot of orientation flights on both the parent and the AS and many bees flying - I assumed that at 20° the nearby OSR had finally come to fruition as many returning bees had a yellow spot on their head (sure I've read on here that is a sign). Nothing that I would have thought was a swarm, although I've never seen one first hand. So...
Early evening I was sat down with a cider, admiring my handiwork when I noticed some bees buzzing around a big old dog rose. Odd I thought as it hasn't flowered yet - so I made my way over and
a cluster the size of a football hanging there! [pic 3]I had a quick peek in the AS on the original site and there still seemed to be the same amount in there as when I checked late Friday evening, the parent and nuc still looked the same. I was however pretty sure they were mine so guessed they'd left the AS. After much fighting with the gnarly old dog rose and a blunt pair of secateurs I had enough room to bang them down into a box [pic 4]. I must have got over 3/4 of them but after leaving them for 10 minutes it was apparent they were re-joining the cluster. Plan B was to put the box upside-down over the top of them and smoke them up [pic 5] , this also failed miserably - eventually I laid an old brood frame over them [pic 6] and each time it filled up I shook it into an empty BB and closed it up - eventually they went in of their own accord so must have got the queen at some point.
I waited until the sun was setting, picked them up and put them in the line with the other three hives, slipped a QE under the BB, reduced the entrance and left them to it.>===========================<
So, another quick look on Sunday, late afternoon:
1. AS is still busy, orientation flights and pollen coming in - had a peek to see if I could see HM and instead saw a capped queen cell
- it looks like an emergency cell though, drawn out of the worker cells, half way up and to one side of the frame, with a right-angle bend in it instead of being straight. No photo as yet but will try for one later.2. Parent hive not so busy but still orientation and pollen, plenty of bees visible through glass quilt looking down on half-brood super. Not opened up.
3. Collected swarm are still there, I haven't open them up for fear of HM legging it. Will give another day and then feed 1:1 as they are on foundation and one drawn frame.
4. Nuc doesn't look happy - very few bees, only a couple of hundred at most, warming a small patch of sealed brood in the very top corner of the frame. Open brood looks to have been chilled and died. No interest by the bees in the two sealed queen cells.
- I guess what happened here is that I populated it with flying bees and not nurse bees, which have now gone back to the AS, although I did block the entrance with grass for 24 hrs.>===========================<
So now I need to make a plan. I'm presuming that the two sealed cells in the nuc have had it - so I should break them down, check for any more and then return that frame plus the few remaining bees to the parent colony, which will hopefully still be bringing on the open queen cells I left them.
I'd like to get a strong colony on double brood for the main flow this year (if we have one
) so am wondering about breaking down the QC in the AS hive and reuniting the swarm with it, maybe after I've fed them for a while and they've drawn out the foundation.Thanks if you've managed to read my ramblings this far - it's been useful to write it out. I know there will be many ideas on where I go from here and I want to hear them all and then make a decision myself.
I'm thick skinned, so no need to hold back...
Nick
.
just wanted to say thank you for some very interresting poasts and i love to see the pictures as an abasalute beginer thay make things alot easer to understand and follow, i look forward to finding out how you get on good luck, and please keep us informed 
