rae
Field Bee
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2009
- Messages
- 826
- Reaction score
- 1
- Location
- Berkshire
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 8 and 3 nucs...it's swarm time...
This morning, we had two colonies, now we appear to have four!
We had planned on a bit of honey extraction this weekend, but the woman in Thornes was right, it wasn't capped yet, so we left the supers in place. On the colony with the split brood, we went through the 14x12 with hods of capped brood and larvae, and carefully inspected every play cup - nothing. Then we went through the lower box. Frame 3...ZOMG...what is that? That'll be a queen cell with a big fat larva curled up in the bottom in a pool of jelly. There were several more on other frames.
A quick panic, thankfully we had an empty hive sitting next door. Literally reading the book in one hand, and moving hives at the same time, we did an artificial swarm. Old queen is on a new brood box contain one frame of capped brood, a frame of stores and loads of foundation, with supers, on the old site. Old brood box is to the right, with several queen cells - we'll let the bees sort out which one is best.
So, we went to look at the other colony - and it was exactly the same. I had to run up the field and grab the bait hive (not easy in your whites), and we did the same for them.
Hopefully our cells will be capped, our queens will emerge, get mated and live happy, productive lives. If not, I'm assuming I can get queens at this stage of the season!
We had planned on a bit of honey extraction this weekend, but the woman in Thornes was right, it wasn't capped yet, so we left the supers in place. On the colony with the split brood, we went through the 14x12 with hods of capped brood and larvae, and carefully inspected every play cup - nothing. Then we went through the lower box. Frame 3...ZOMG...what is that? That'll be a queen cell with a big fat larva curled up in the bottom in a pool of jelly. There were several more on other frames.
A quick panic, thankfully we had an empty hive sitting next door. Literally reading the book in one hand, and moving hives at the same time, we did an artificial swarm. Old queen is on a new brood box contain one frame of capped brood, a frame of stores and loads of foundation, with supers, on the old site. Old brood box is to the right, with several queen cells - we'll let the bees sort out which one is best.
So, we went to look at the other colony - and it was exactly the same. I had to run up the field and grab the bait hive (not easy in your whites), and we did the same for them.
Hopefully our cells will be capped, our queens will emerge, get mated and live happy, productive lives. If not, I'm assuming I can get queens at this stage of the season!
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