And then there were two . . .

After a hectic day of work yesterday in London, I finally got the train back, after spending ages on Swindon station (delays due to signalling failure, then single-track working!).

I only had an hour at home, though, as I had to get into the truck and drive for 2 hours to PolyHive's place to pick up a nuc

I sorted the hive location out (now fairly horizontal) and left for the M5, M42, nearly up North, drive which went well.

PH seemed a nice bloke and led me on a crazy drive to his apiary along the border of a big field. Lots of poly nucs and a few poly hives (duh!) mostly gone to bed at 20.30 ish.

The nuc was full of bees! 4 Langstroth frames and a couple of National frames (cable tied into Langstroth frames after their lugs had been sawn off a bit). I struggled to carry it back to the car - note to self: go to the gym and get strong really quickly.

The bees were much darker than the ones I'd got from GWW and Widdershins in Kent. Fairly grumpy, but it was late and we'd just pulled their home apart. Hopefully they'll be calmer under normal conditions.

At the car, PH brushed off as many bees as we could to avoid too many loose in the car, but there were still a few drifting around, despite my sun-roof and back window hoovering technique as I drove. Bee suit stayed on, which caused a few looks at the services an hour later.

Finally got home at 23.30 ish, so knackered I found I hadn't been wearing a seatbelt for the last N miles (!) and used a torch to site the hive and open up the entrance for them.

This morning, a few bees were out and about from this second hive, but it was a bit early and cold for much activity. PH suggested leaving them alone for a few days to get over the move so I'll do that.

It wasn't possible to spot the queen in the transfer, but PH promised he'd provide one asap on the remote chance we'd lost or squished her in the transfer process.

One bee was still in the car this morning, despite leaving the sunroof open all night, attracted to the frames and foundation in the back.

I now have two colonies. Twice the workload, but a lot more fall-back options. How do people cope with 10+ colonies??

FG

 

[gandalfwhitewizard]

ummm, not good beekeeping in near darkness....i have been stung too many times with hiving swarms late in the evening.

Not encouraging to read that the queen was not seen. Providing the frames were running in the direction of travel then they should have not crushed the queen.

Bees are going to be grumpy with most of the colony back in the hive but surprised PH did not know that!

Sounds like you have BS National frames on Langstroth adapters, which are o.k., but wise to get them out and change them to Langstroth frames when you can.

Good luck with your new colony and hope they calm down as you won't want grumpy drones if you plan to improve your queen rearing programme.

GWW. We do have 32 queen cells in should be ready a week saturday so if you do need a replacement i'm sure we can help.

 

[Firegazer]

I'm hoping to give them a quick look tomorrow and see where we are. There was lots and lots of capped and uncapped brood, so unless the queen was dropped in the transfer, we should be OK.

Their temperament is yet to be determined. They certainly seem a lot more defensive than the first colony so far - I was "asked to leave" whilst viewing them from 3 or 4 metres away last evening. The colony I got from you seem happy to crack on unless I get right in front of them.

Four frames are straight Langstroth, another 2 are Nationals inside Langstroth frames.

The first colony is going like a machine. I haven't supered them, just given them a new, empty BB under the primary full one. I haven't inspected them for 9 days now, so we'll see how they are building it out tomorrow.

Is there time to get a queen cell from you and start off a nuc with a few frames from the bigger colony? If I stole some of the top box frames and replaced them with empty ones, they'd probably use them for stores now they have the lower box to raise brood in.

FG

 

[gandalfwhitewizard]

Not a good idea to start splitting a good establish, strong colony by adding Q/C's. Concentrate on getting that colony to winter and then we will happily sort you out next Spring.

Some of our biggest mistakes in the first year we made was not uniting weak swarms to make a big strong colonies for Winter. Too eager to make what we thought were more colonies!!!

Check them! 9 days i do hope they haven't swarmed...check the frames for any play cups or q/c's.

Let us know your updates.

GWW

 

[Firegazer]

GWW,
point taken, we'll just big them up and not think about dividing until next year.

They are certainly piling the stores in. How much do you think they'll need to get through Winter? The whole upper BB, or maybe just 4 or 5 full depth frames?

FG