I made 5 5frame nuc boxes with swarm lure and beeswax painted on the inside. all with new foundation. 3 nucs got taken away so i took the other 2 home.
4 weeks ago whilst driving through luton town centre, i passed a masive prime swarm clinging to a metal parking post.
onlookers were giving it a wide birth and traffic was slowing down to watch it.
i quickly went home and donned my bee suit, picked up a water spray bottle and a nuc box.
when i got back to the bees i gave the bees a good spray of water and put the nuc box over them. They soon started to enter the nuc.
then i was approached by a guy who told me that the hairdresser a few feet away had sprayed the swarm with wasp killer !!!
after about two hours nearly all the swarm was in the nuc, i had to take all the frames out to get them in and i took it to my garden where i have 3 empty nationals.
i left the nuc overnight and the next day i emptied the box over a white board and the bees started entering my national.
it was about then that i noticed about on third of the bees were dead from the wasp spray.
two days later i opened the hive for a quick peek and saw the only bees in it were about 3 hundred dead. bees.
the remaining bees had split into two, one entered my nuc box and settled in there while the other, a much smaller cast had entered one of my other nationals.
i tried spraying both lots of bees with water in the hope it may rinse off some of the remaining wasp spray.
i have fed both hives with a sugar syrup and left them alone until last week.
i had a look at them, one hive has no visable queen but seems quite happy snuggling up to the swarm lure ?
the other hive a nuc, packed with bees but only sealed brood on two frames and i did not see any queen but i think she must be there.
i united the two hives last week using newspaper, so they can do the crossword while waiting to meet each other.
2 days later i looked in to remove the paper and a lot of the bees in the bottom box had moved to the top.
i have now put all the occupied frames into 1 hive which leaves room for 3 undrawn frames in the hive. i have also given a dusting of icing sugar. three days later i did not count any varroa ?
I have also put a super under the floor and ontop of the stand ready for winter.
Since i got the bees they have been very very placid and a pleasure to watch.
today there seems to be a lot of excitement around the hive. i noticed bees bringing in orange, green and a white pollen.
There are about 7 or 8 wasps sitting around the hive so i have reduced the entrance to about twenty mil. to see if it helps out the bees.
I have also been playing wasp badminton, i know this may not help the bees but it sure is fun. :0)
I just hope they make it through the winter and i can't help wondering how big the swarm would have been if that idiot hairdresser had left them alone.
how long do you have to keep bees before you can call yourself a bee keeper ??
shonto
