AndreaW
House Bee
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2011
- Messages
- 144
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Essex
- Hive Type
- Commercial
- Number of Hives
- 2
Hi folks,
Need a bit of guidance on ASs and cast swarms (or detering of).
Situation is:
Didn't manage to look at colony for a couple of weeks due to weather and family illness. Looked last Monday and sealed swarm cells present. Tried again on Tuesday to find queen (she is marked and clipped) as lots of bees still in hive. No sign.
Friend in BKA came out with me on Friday and we found still some sealed queen cells and a virgin queen running around! Can't believe that they hadn't swarmed with her.
We did an AS putting new queen in new BB and placing this in existing hive position. Rest of original BB moved to right and all sealed QC bar 3 (he suggersted 3 for safety) removed. We still had some uncapped larvae present , probably about day 5.
My question is - I don't want the parent colony to throw off a cast if the bees start to make more QCs as Q- (unless a virgin hatched quite quickly after AS). Should I go in today or tomorrow and check that any QCs have hatched or whether any more are being produced and destroy excess? Or do I leave well alone and pray that the larvae were too far along to be converted to QCs.
How long do I leave it before I go into the AS hive to see what is going on? I am presuming a few weeks to allow new queen to hopefully mate and start to lay - I am presuming there is no issue there. They have a BB full of foundation and frame of brood with some stores on it. Also a super of stores that they had left from collection recently and overwintering food. I am wondering whether to add another super of foundation as well so that the flying bees can come back and start to store (or will they be too busy drawing out the foudation in the BB and put any nectar in that for time being?)
Thanks
Andrea
Need a bit of guidance on ASs and cast swarms (or detering of).
Situation is:
Didn't manage to look at colony for a couple of weeks due to weather and family illness. Looked last Monday and sealed swarm cells present. Tried again on Tuesday to find queen (she is marked and clipped) as lots of bees still in hive. No sign.
Friend in BKA came out with me on Friday and we found still some sealed queen cells and a virgin queen running around! Can't believe that they hadn't swarmed with her.
We did an AS putting new queen in new BB and placing this in existing hive position. Rest of original BB moved to right and all sealed QC bar 3 (he suggersted 3 for safety) removed. We still had some uncapped larvae present , probably about day 5.
My question is - I don't want the parent colony to throw off a cast if the bees start to make more QCs as Q- (unless a virgin hatched quite quickly after AS). Should I go in today or tomorrow and check that any QCs have hatched or whether any more are being produced and destroy excess? Or do I leave well alone and pray that the larvae were too far along to be converted to QCs.
How long do I leave it before I go into the AS hive to see what is going on? I am presuming a few weeks to allow new queen to hopefully mate and start to lay - I am presuming there is no issue there. They have a BB full of foundation and frame of brood with some stores on it. Also a super of stores that they had left from collection recently and overwintering food. I am wondering whether to add another super of foundation as well so that the flying bees can come back and start to store (or will they be too busy drawing out the foudation in the BB and put any nectar in that for time being?)
Thanks
Andrea
)
