Bees falling about like they are drunk

[keith pierce]

And there is a possibility of the queen having been killed in the fighting .

 

[alldigging]

Hardly a swarm if that’s it in the travel box a small cast at best. You perhaps contributed some of your flying bees but I bet even then small and rather vulnerable if in an apiary with large colonies.

The photo of under the hive shows what looks like pieces of wax and larger than what you would normally expect to fall through the mesh and to me another indication to robbing.

How is your hive doing?

I assumed that much wax under from such a small bunch of bees would be robbing.

My hive is ok - bees coming back with pollen. no sign of falling over. Not as many fliers as I'd like though - but plenty of bees being made.

 

[itma]

alldigging had no choice but to move their bees within the apiary because somebody else was bringing in a swarm and had insisted on using a particular spot. There's another thread about it. http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=24306

Sorry Itma and Craig but you're giving the wrong person stick here. The person whose hive she is now discussing very sefishly insisted on putting the hived swarm where her hive was and would take no persuading otherwise.

Sounds like a very sickly swarm to me.

Karma?

Sorry, but the bees are no respecters of human wishes.
As per the other responses on the other thread, it was predictable that there would be trouble.

The other person's insistence on a specific spot occupied by another colony, immediately, is not 'working with the bees' and any beek ought to know that. Mistake number 1.

However, that raises the question of what Alldigging's hive was doing on a spot that someone else had a better claim to? When you put a hive somewhere, you should know that the colony is going to 'home' to that exact spot from that point on, and can only be moved according to the guidelines. Having the hive in someone else's spot, and not 'inching' it away, long before push came to shove, is a different mistake.
And not having ANY sort of 'Plan B' for an alternative 'out apiary' site is a third error that contributes to the situation. Every beek needs to have some sort of fallback option (could be the Association apiary) where the bees can go if it becomes necessary. And I would suggest that this is at least doubly important with a public site like an allotment - where misbehaving bees are likely to become unwelcome very quickly indeed.

Since the sickly hive is not Alldigging's responsibility, I think that if her hive 'had' to be moved, then it should (still) be moved miles away for a few weeks, before being relocated to the allotment, well away from the cause of the trouble, which will probably have died out by then. Karma indeed.
Meanwhile, I'd suggest giving her own hive a big bee-visible distinguishing marking (to minimise accidental drifting), and watching out for the health of her own bees.

 

[alldigging]

Spoke to hive owner and some samples of bees will be collected and taken for testing.