PaleoPerson
Field Bee
Due to the poor weather over the past weeks, my hives went 14 days before I could do an inspection. All OK except one hive which have been very aggressive and I had planned to re-queen in the next few weeks.
I opened up the hive to 10+ queen cells, 5 of which were capped. Had they swarmed?, the number of bees looked the same as the others. So I looked for the queen - could not find. Looked for eggs - none. Bugger!
I then went through the hive a further 4 times looking for the queen, even putting three frames each into nuc bases to try to locate her - NO.
So I split the hive in two (as per art swarm but without queen) with a big capped queen cell in each and left until today (3 days). I then went through them.
One had made more queen cells that were duly disposed of, leaving the original QC. The other hive had eggs, not many and they were on fresh foundation that had been drawn in the last three days, also the queen was seen on this frame, skinny, but fine. So I squashed the QC in this hive.
The amazing thing about them is that the temperament has had a complete U turn and are nice docile bees in both hives now, despite being on OSR.
This was my solution to a problem, whether this was the right approach, the next 3 or 4 weeks will tell.
I opened up the hive to 10+ queen cells, 5 of which were capped. Had they swarmed?, the number of bees looked the same as the others. So I looked for the queen - could not find. Looked for eggs - none. Bugger!
I then went through the hive a further 4 times looking for the queen, even putting three frames each into nuc bases to try to locate her - NO.
So I split the hive in two (as per art swarm but without queen) with a big capped queen cell in each and left until today (3 days). I then went through them.
One had made more queen cells that were duly disposed of, leaving the original QC. The other hive had eggs, not many and they were on fresh foundation that had been drawn in the last three days, also the queen was seen on this frame, skinny, but fine. So I squashed the QC in this hive.
The amazing thing about them is that the temperament has had a complete U turn and are nice docile bees in both hives now, despite being on OSR.
This was my solution to a problem, whether this was the right approach, the next 3 or 4 weeks will tell.