Can you explain this?

[theCAA]

So 2 colonies in my apiary were in trouble. No.1 was queenless, no.2 had a new, marked laying queen but had a population of probably less than 500!

No.2's low pop. was due to it being weak to start with, then I fed them some fondant before going away for 3 weeks. I had no one to tend the apiary, and when I got back, the fondant was completely gone and the hive was full of wasps.

It was then that I also discovered no.1 was queenless.

I decided to take drastic action by capturing the queen from 2 and introducing it, in a cage of course, to 1. I would then merge the bees from 2 into a different hive, hive 3. This is the first time I've tried to do this, so I spent a long time finnicking about trying to get her in the cage. In the end I never got her in and I couldn't find her from then on.

All of a sudden the bees started to fly out of the hive - they were swarming! They didn't go far, just to the side of another one of my hives which was less than 5ft away.

I'm not sure whether I distressed the hive and the queen enough to cause this, or whether it was a combination of the wasps, myself, and the domed situation of hive 2.

Since the swarm I found her inside it (it wasn't very big), caged her and introduced her to hive1, took the other bees and put them in hive 3 using the newspaper technique.

I would appreciate any feedback any of you might have with regards to what has gone on, or any advice.

Thanks.

Edit: this all happened today, in September, another reason why I was surprised at the swarm, and thought it was not for you standard reasons.

 

[oliver90owner]

They didn't swarm. No queen cells and no bees left behind. They absconded.

Presumably, if there was any brood in that hive, there were insufficient bees to service them. Clearly some combination of your suggestions, but which, I would have no idea which it was that finally pushed them over the limit - but probably your intervention.

Just hope her new home was queenless.

 

[pargyle]

Did you use a lot of smoke while you were faffing about ?

 

[alldigging]

How do you know hive 1 was queen less?

 

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi CAA.
Probably the queen flew off at some point when trying to cage her. The pooter type of plastic tube is good for catching then transfer her to cage in car.
No attendants needed going from one hive to one nearby

 

[Skyhook]

Best first course would have been to check hive 1 with a test frame to see if it was truly q-. If it was, and with hive 2 the size of a mating nuc, combining would have (and may still be) your best bet.

 

[pargyle]

I think we're talking to the wall guys ... last seen about 10 minutes after the question was asked ...