Ceph
New Bee
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2010
- Messages
- 78
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- London uk
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 2
Sorry there are quite a few questions here but I would greatly appreciate some advice.
I have done an artificial swarm with a snelgrove board on a very strong colony and have some questions with the brood box with the QC's and the brood box with the old queen in.
Brood Box with QC
The virgin queen has hatched I think, see pic below, and I assume is either on mating flights or somewhere having a quiet cup of tea (I couldnt see her). Problem is that there is such a good nectar flow on at the mo and the colony is so strong that the brood box has stores on every frame with virtually no where to lay eggs. I cant bruise the stores as there is very minimal capped.
I put a super with foundation on this brood box a week ago to give them more space (before it was full of stores) but they have not drawn it out.
I currently have no spare brood frames but loads of foundation so assume I need to get buying frames today.
(1) How shall I handle this brood box? If she is mating or mated there is nowhere to lay so I assume they may swarm.
(2) Shall I get the QE off and allow them to draw out the super for her to lay? Or something else?
Brood Box with Old Queen
Queen is still laying well and in that sense is good, she’s a great queen.
However, I have been having to remove lots of new QC’s every week, not just play cups, lots of QC.
They have 3 supers with two about 3 quarter capped honey and one filling up nicely which is quite heavy.
Found several QC’s yesterday and removed all but two big ones (on seperate frames) with grubs and royal jelly, see pics. I now have some nucs on route so may as well create at least one or maybe two from this colony to try and take the swarming instinct away.
(3) Am I doing the right thing?
(4) I suppose I take a frame with a QC and a frame of stores to start a nuc?
(5) Also I only have a small apiary so your advice on popping nucs in around original hives without them wanting to go home would be helpful.
Thanks!!
I have done an artificial swarm with a snelgrove board on a very strong colony and have some questions with the brood box with the QC's and the brood box with the old queen in.
Brood Box with QC
The virgin queen has hatched I think, see pic below, and I assume is either on mating flights or somewhere having a quiet cup of tea (I couldnt see her). Problem is that there is such a good nectar flow on at the mo and the colony is so strong that the brood box has stores on every frame with virtually no where to lay eggs. I cant bruise the stores as there is very minimal capped.
I put a super with foundation on this brood box a week ago to give them more space (before it was full of stores) but they have not drawn it out.
I currently have no spare brood frames but loads of foundation so assume I need to get buying frames today.
(1) How shall I handle this brood box? If she is mating or mated there is nowhere to lay so I assume they may swarm.
(2) Shall I get the QE off and allow them to draw out the super for her to lay? Or something else?
Brood Box with Old Queen
Queen is still laying well and in that sense is good, she’s a great queen.
However, I have been having to remove lots of new QC’s every week, not just play cups, lots of QC.
They have 3 supers with two about 3 quarter capped honey and one filling up nicely which is quite heavy.
Found several QC’s yesterday and removed all but two big ones (on seperate frames) with grubs and royal jelly, see pics. I now have some nucs on route so may as well create at least one or maybe two from this colony to try and take the swarming instinct away.
(3) Am I doing the right thing?
(4) I suppose I take a frame with a QC and a frame of stores to start a nuc?
(5) Also I only have a small apiary so your advice on popping nucs in around original hives without them wanting to go home would be helpful.
Thanks!!
