colonies uniting

[greenwellies]

Had a prime looking swarm of beautiful golden coloured bees arrived in one of my bate boxes in early June. In fact there were so many bees half of them were hanging under the 5 frame box located on the side of my out building. Got quite exited by their arrival, as my neighbour who is a proper purist beekeeper (unlike me a keeper of bees) had gone on holiday and was sure they had come from his well managed apiary.
Once they were settled, had a spare national hive waiting for them and within half an hour they were housed and settling in. Left them for a few days then thought I would check they were ok and put a queen excluder between the brood chamber and the single super I had given them. Problem was I couldn't find the queen (this happens to me a lot) so abandoned the queen excluder and left them to get on with it. After a week or two checked on them only to find they were all up in the super and ignoring the brood chamber. Still couldn't find the queen so decided to leave them alone.
They have been flying pretty well all summer, and were booting out drones in late August so presumed all was well. Lifted lid to show my wife (glass crown board) last week and there were hell of a lot of bees but still all up in the super so was thinking need to do something before winter, but what, as my thought was there must be a queen as it is nearly three months since they arrived and numbers should be well depleted should it be queenless.
On the other side of my garden about 30 metres from this hive I have another national hive which has a single brood box and a single super., this hive whatever I do swarms twice every season and always has, but always get a super of honey and often manage to hive the swarm so I am not complaining. Last week checked on this hive, all was well. Next day my wife said there was a lot of bee activety in the garden and what was going on and that there were loads of bees all around the second hive I mentioned. Had a look at the hive entrance and saw that some of the bees were very golden looking but some were very dark looking.
Checked on the 'golden bee hive' and it was completly empty. There were so many bees in the other hive now that I took an empty super of drawn out frames and put it on to make enough room for all the extra bees...it appears the two hives have joined together, and seem to be getting on fine. If I stand and watch the hive entrance there are two very different colours and types of bee working away together.
Suppose this story is a long winded way of saying have kept bees for 25 years and its a first for me! Would be interested in other members comments.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

A "proper beekeeper" and June holidays are incompatible.

Did you never look for brood? After a long-enough time Q- they will start to get creative, and live MUCH longer than 6 weeks with no brood to rear.

 

[greenwellies]

Yes there appeared to be brood, pollen and honey all mixed up in the super frames but mainly honey and pollen.

 

[For want of a better word]

Depending a lot on whereabouts in Kernow you is.......

A lot more beekeepers in the county have discovered the virtues of keeping Cornish black bees ( Amm) and breeding programs have been underway for some years now to increase and bring back the stock of Cornish black bees to levels they were at before the pressure to keep yellow imported bees were being extolled by those who sadly did not know any better.
Probably the color change is due to the Amm gene making sway over the usual introgression of genetics of the imported stocks.

Look up BIPCo and B4 project and BIBBA for more useful info on our native honeybee.

and ​

Yeghes da

 

[greenwellies]

My normal bees are darkish coloured, but not Cornish Black, my mate keeps those but reckons they are nasty little so and so's making me steer clear of them.

 

[For want of a better word]

My normal bees are darkish coloured, but not ***Cornish Black, my mate keeps those but reckons they are nasty little so and so's making me steer clear of them.

***
Another myth... my 94%+ ( DNA proven) Amm are a delight to keep.

Perhaps your mate is mistaken about his Cornish black bees and has a nasty crock of dark carnieitialians... ferrari bees.

perhaps he could get some propper jobs!!!!

( why on Earth any beekeeper would wish to keep nasty little so and so's fails me)

Yeghes da

 

[greenwellies]

Reckons reason he keeps them is he has a man shed behind his bee hives and it keeps his wife and kids away.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Depending a lot on whereabouts in Kernow you is.......

A lot more beekeepers in the county have discovered the virtues of keeping Cornish black bees ( Amm) and breeding programs have been underway for some years now to increase and bring back the stock of Cornish black bees to levels they were at before the pressure to keep yellow imported bees were being extolled by those who sadly did not know any better.
Probably the color change is due to the Amm gene making sway over the usual introgression of genetics of the imported stocks.

Look up BIPCo and B4 project and BIBBA for more useful info on our native honeybee.


Yeghes da

You should print thousands of leaflets and drop them out of high flying aircraft to spread the propaganda to the populace.
Don't think it would go down well with DEFRA though

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Had a prime looking swarm of beautiful golden coloured bees arrived in one of my bate boxes in early June. In fact there were so many bees half of them were hanging under the 5 frame box located on the side of my out building. Got quite exited by their arrival, as my neighbour who is a proper purist beekeeper (unlike me a keeper of bees) had gone on holiday and was sure they had come from his well managed apiary.
Once they were settled, had a spare national hive waiting for them and within half an hour they were housed and settling in. Left them for a few days then thought I would check they were ok and put a queen excluder between the brood chamber and the single super I had given them. Problem was I couldn't find the queen (this happens to me a lot) so abandoned the queen excluder and left them to get on with it. After a week or two checked on them only to find they were all up in the super and ignoring the brood chamber. Still couldn't find the queen so decided to leave them alone.

I don't follow why you gave a swarm a brood box and a super.
If you had BIAS and still couldn't find the queen I'd have brushed every bee in the super off into the brood box with a couple of drawn frames if there was still only foundation in the brood (although if you used a bait box this ought to have had brood size frames for the colony to start drawing when they moved in), put the QE in place and left them to get on with it.

 

[greenwellies]

You are probably right, but when they arrived at the 4/5 frame bait box and were so numerous as to need double the space I (was standing in the garden when they arrived) I had an empty hive so did no more than put a piece of ply and a sheet leading up to the entrance lit my smoker and put the bait box on the sheet minus the lid (bearing in mind that half the bees were hanging off the bottom of it) smoked the loose bees who marched into the hive taking the rest of the swarm with them....had to presume the queen had followed and as they settled in immeadiatley with only a few casualties left on the sheet and definately no queen amongst those thought all was well. The whole process from arrival to housed was about 45 minutes. Then left them to get on with it.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

So did they leave brood behind?

 

[greenwellies]

No, so presume if there had been a q at the early stage there wasn't at the end....probably answered my own question, but still think it unusual for them to move in across the garden to share a new home which was the the original reason for the post.