any suggestions?

[zng109]

I know the queen has got round the excluder, I know I have a very small brood too,
this was just a rush job to home a swarm.

thank you for your time and suggestions

 

[For want of a better word]

Are they in a Nuc?

 

[zng109]

ok this is where techno speak lets me down. so I will explane in my terms.
the hive is wbc.
it has a total of four sections, of which I have framed 2,
the bottom section is large frames that I recall were refered too as the brood chamber But could be wrong.
I dumped the swarm in the brood chamber and put the queen excluder down
then put a second shalow frame section above which I belived would be used for honey.
checking the hive I can see that the lower brood chamber has been avoided and is just being used as a foot path to the upper section (through the excluder).
checking the frame, I have so far identified two possible queen grubs (peanuts)
a few worker grubs, pollen and honey.
also the bees have chewed through the wax in a few places.
I belive that soon the queen grubs will hatch, I need to know if I should kill them or let the queens fight it out, the total swarm is the size of a junior rugby ball I can not risk a swarm.

 

[zng109]

I dont know if this helps at all

 

[Hivemaker.]

Looks like one shallow frame of laying workers.

 

[MandF]

If you have "grubs", you must have had a queen (which you should have with a swarm), and I think I can see eggs in the first picture, so you still have a queen or at least had one in the last 3 days.
I dont see any queen cells in your pictures, I do see a couple sealed drone brood. To me the only thing "wrong" at the moment is the queen is trapped above the queen excluder and cannot get down to the lower brood chamber. I suggest removing the excluder.

One question I have, please dont take it the wrong way, how come you have homed a swarm and yet dont even know the basics (a swarm contains a queen, what eggs look like, the difference between worker, drone and queen cells etc)?

 

[Swarm]

It may be a good idea to brush/shake all the bees into the brood chamber after transferring any drawn super frames (looks like just the one frame?) to the brood chamber as well (it can be replaced later) then reduce the brood area using a dummy board.
Better still would be to follow the above procedure but into a nucleus box.

A swarm from something that small would be suicide, the QC are most likely supersedure cells. Either way I'd leave them to it, I had a weak nuc that superseded. Good luck.

 

[MrB]

not sure if its just the light but can i see multiple eggs in cells on your very first pic, which might suggest as already mentioned by HM that you have laying workers

 

[kazmcc]

Welcome to beekeeping

It's going to be a steep learning curve. Have you posted in the Mentorship wanted section? There are a lot of members of the forum who are from your area, they might be able to give you a quick intro to beekeeping, what you are looking at, some of the basic terms etc, from one of their established colonies.

Nice pictures by the way

 

[For want of a better word]

Welcome to beekeeping

It's going to be a steep learning curve. Have you posted in the Mentorship wanted section? There are a lot of members of the forum who are from your area, they might be able to give you a quick intro to beekeeping, what you are looking at, some of the basic terms etc, from one of their established colonies.

Nice pictures by the way

Contact your local branch of BBKA

If you are near Reigate... very active and friendly grist of beeks there!

best to remove the Queen exclude and bottom box they are climbing through. they do not want or need a lot of space at the moment. and close the front sliders on the WBC to about a thumbs width so they can guard it.
Did you catch this cast or did they move into your hive??
good luck

 

[kazmcc]

grist of beeks there!

LOL. Is that what we are called? I assumed it was a herd

 

[For want of a better word]

Quote:
Originally Posted by icanhopit View Post
grist of beeks there!


LOL. Is that what we are called? I assumed it was a herd


A GRUMP in Devon.... A GWENYN in Cornwall.... or is it a KERN ????

 

[beeatshellards]

I would also remove the super , the colony is small and wont need it yet,if at all this year, depends on the forage and how quick they build up . also we refer to" grubs" as brood, if they are sealed they are capped brood

 

[For want of a better word]

I would also remove the super , the colony is small and wont need it yet,if at all this year, depends on the forage and how quick they build up . also we refer to" grubs" as brood, if they are sealed they are capped brood

I like that term GRUBS...... a GRUB of beeks???

 

[zng109]

If you have "grubs", you must have had a queen (which you should have with a swarm), and I think I can see eggs in the first picture, so you still have a queen or at least had one in the last 3 days.
I dont see any queen cells in your pictures, I do see a couple sealed drone brood. To me the only thing "wrong" at the moment is the queen is trapped above the queen excluder and cannot get down to the lower brood chamber. I suggest removing the excluder.

One question I have, please dont take it the wrong way, how come you have homed a swarm and yet dont even know the basics (a swarm contains a queen, what eggs look like, the difference between worker, drone and queen cells etc)?

no offence taken, yes i know what a drone looks like, pretty confident on queens, however I have no bee suit at all so I have to be very gentle with them. and I have no intention of upsetting them without suitable protection.
my only bee keeping expeariances are from 33 years ago as a child next to my father, so I have a basic knoledge but no eliquence in terminoligy.
I have put up in the mentorship colum and am aware of the apery near mickleham, I just dont like the big group idea and have had some very unhappy expeariances "group learning"

 

[Steve Dyer]

best to remove the Queen exclude and bottom box they are climbing through.

- Take a long and careful look at the queen excluder. Maybe it has a bent wire/hole/break etc and she got through that. If so it needs fixing before you put it with the rest of your kit to re-use next year

Steve

 

[susbees]

It may be a good idea to brush/shake all the bees into the brood chamber after transferring any drawn super frames (looks like just the one frame?) to the brood chamber as well (it can be replaced later) then reduce the brood area using a dummy board.
Better still would be to follow the above procedure but into a nucleus box.

A swarm from something that small would be suicide, the QC are most likely supersedure cells. Either way I'd leave them to it, I had a weak nuc that superseded. Good luck.

Are there actually any bees IN the brood box? What I see is one frame of bees and a couple of sealed drone cells.

If this is the case then either there is sealed worker brood (underside of a Jaffa cake) or there is not. If none of your larvae are sealing like this then you have a drone laying queen who was never mated or barely mated and useless.

If there is a laying queen then they have far too much space. Take the frame and stick it in a nuc, use dummy boards and give them a frame of stores from another hive or a feeder with a little feed. Or run a test frame and combine.

If you don't know the basics then to be a responsible beekeeper get onto your nearest BKA pronto and start reading. If this is a single frame of bees in a rattling big box with a drone laying queen they'll be dead by winter.

 

[zng109]

I have a feeder, what i need to do is sort out the lower brood box its from a national hive, I have the wbc deep frames but need to put wax sheets in them (and to be honest in the current ecconomic climate food on the table tax and more tax and petrol for the car comes first) so month end I will buy the wax.
I am rather sure there is a queen in there on two counts.
to my limited knoledge workers dont just up and leave on their own and try to build a nest behind a wall.
when picking up the last of swarm I was stung in the hand and no bee sting or poisen sack was left in my hand so i am rather sure the queen (who I belive has a non barbed sting) got me.
I will remove the excluder and reduce the door gap on the hive ( I have wasps hiding in the honey succle out side the hive, and pop a few wasp traps round.
I know from swarm size that I will not get honey this year the idea is to bed them in make them happy and get them to reproduce into a decent size swarm

 

[Moggs]

zng - you are way off the mark on several counts. For example, a queen very rarely stings unless it's another queen in self defence. For the sake of these bees, I strongly advise you to get a mentor. For your own sake, I strongly advise that you get a bee suit.

 

[drstitson]

1. where in surrey are you?

edit - your mentorship post answered that!!!

2. you appear to have drones above the super too.