bees about to swarm

[Craftypint]

I've just looked at my hives and there are thousands of bees flying and on the outside of the hive. What should I do?

We had a couple of sealed queen cells when inspecting on Tuesday and assumed we'd already missed them swarming.

 

[Craftypint]

I've just looked at my hives and there are thousands of bees flying and on the outside of the hive. What should I do?

We had a couple of sealed queen cells when inspecting on Tuesday and assumed we'd already missed them swarming.

 

[Ian123]

What do you normally do?…….as you thought you may have already missed the prime swarm there is a possibility your watching a cast/swarm leaving with a virgin. Did you see any eggs present when you inspected.? If they clump on the front like that I’d probably try to gather them up and rehome.

 

[Craftypint]

The timeline was, inspected on Tues 12th, all looked fine, had a good look and didn't see any queen cells. I'm terrible at finding the queen but there was bias. Couldn't inspect last Tuesday but did Wednesday and found the 2 sealed queen cells and some unsealed. We thought there were plenty of bees but maybe fewer than the week before so assumed they'd already swarmed.

Went back in on Friday and kept one sealed cell and went through every other frame shaking off bees and removing queen cells. There were no eggs.

Then found this today, they're not all over the hive now but there are still a lot flying around the hive. My neighbour saw a swarm in their garden but it flew off, then somebody saw what they thought were wasps a couple of hundred metres away. I've been cycling around trying to spot them but no luck.