Bad Beekeeping

[thedozzer]

I am going to own up to some very bad beekeeping.

We did our last inspection at the end of March and had not wanted to inspect because of the cold temps/wind, well today the bees gave us a lesson in why its important to do 7/10 days inspection.

I was at home today and noticed they were a lot more active than usual, then by 11:30 all hell has broken lose and they are starting to swarm, we have only had the bees 10 months, so thousands of bees in the air covering everything was a bit of an "Oh bugger" moment

Far more by luck than judgement, we had already set up a hive for a split that we had planed in the next few weeks, well as the bees had beaten us to it, i opened the hive and we had a bait nuc on top, both with some citron oil in, and the hive had a spare frame of stores and they decided to beard on the front of the spare hive.

This gave me a little bit of breathing/thinking time, sat and had a cup of tea, and as Eric Beaumont has always been very helpful, i gave him a quick call, and as ever there was a calm voice of reason on the other end, and he talked me through what was likely to be the best course of action. opened the spare hive roof, removed some frames and then using a dustpan gently scooped up as much of the beard and put them in the hive, had a few pans full, and when i could not see any big clusters left outside, placed a few frames back and put the lid on.

it looks like its has been successful, but time will tell if they decide to abscond, we will deal with the remaining hive as per Eric's advice to chose one or two of the best open queen cells with Larvae, break down the rest and leave them alone for 5 days, we may take his advice on doing a second split with a spare Q cell and a frame of brood & stores into a nuc as an insurance policy.

Thought i would post this to say thanks to Eric for being the voice of sanity, and a bit of a lesson for other newbies like me not to underestimate the importance of regular inspection.

 

[Murox]

Well saved. Being prepared always pays off. Now you can Keep one step ahead.

 

[Swarm]

Clever bees

 

[thedozzer]

Well saved. Being prepared always pays off. Now you can Keep one step ahead.

thanks Hope we don't make that mistake again in a hurry. we will try and make sure there are no secondary swarms now.

Clever bees

They are, and do a good job of looking after themselves despite our clumsy bee keeping.

 

[enrico]

How come mine always go fifty feet up a tree and yours go into the box next door......good photos
E

 

[thedozzer]

How come mine always go fifty feet up a tree and yours go into the box next door......good photos
E

Thanks Enrico, im not sure how i managed to stay calm to take the pics, and as for them deciding to go next door, Luck, Luck and more luck plus probably the sent of the citron oil!!
now going to sort out the parent hive and see how many viable QC we have.

 

[thedozzer]

Quick update, have just finished full inspection of the primary hive and destroyed over 20 queen cells, and the little buggers are good at hiding them, im sure i have missed one or tow. did a full sweep of frames, then as a sanity check did them again and found another 4 tucked at the bottom of frames and right in the middle of a frame so not easy to spot, have left 2 viable open QC with nice big fat juicy larvae in and removed 2 more and put into a nuc with a frame of stores and a frame of capped brood, the primary hive also has 6 3/4 full frames of stores in the super above so think they have enough stores. haven't bothered to look into the swarmed hive yet, Eric B suggested that the swarmed colony will be OK for 2-3 weeks before needing any inspection, what would others do, and do you think i have done the right thing so far?

This has been a vertical learning curve!!
on the plus side did the whole inspection sans gloves, and not one sting and you can handle the frames much easier.

 

[Swarm]

Sounds good to me but I would leave them just one.

 

[Brigsy]

Well recovered!

 

[thedozzer]

Sounds good to me but I would leave them just one.

may go and have a look in 5 days time and see if they are both capped, then if they both look OK remove one, and do the same for the Nuc.

Would you feed the nuc? as they don't look like they have many foragers, but the frames were full of bees when i put them in, but most could be younger nurse bees.

 

[Swarm]

may go and have a look in 5 days time and see if they are both capped, then if they both look OK remove one, and do the same for the Nuc.

Would you feed the nuc? as they don't look like they have many foragers, but the frames were full of bees when i put them in, but most could be younger nurse bees.

How full was the frame of stores you gave them? If that was full they should be ok, you can always assess them later.

 

[thedozzer]

How full was the frame of stores you gave them? If that was full they should be ok, you can always assess them later.

it was full one side and only part drawn & filled the other 14x12, have a miller style Masie Nuc feeder and some thymolated syrup so would not take much to do.