Tremyfro
Queen Bee
- Joined
- May 19, 2014
- Messages
- 2,434
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Vale of Glamorgan
- Hive Type
- Beehaus
- Number of Hives
- Possibly...5 and a bit...depends on the bees.
Finally...able to get into the hives after 9 days .....this was the first day that we were actually comfortable about looking in the hives. The wind had dropped to a light breeze and it was actually warm!
The Pond Hives were fine...but will have to move Hive 1 into a nuc this week.. Brood on only 3 frames....plenty of stores and my lovely Queen was still in residence.
In the Bee Yard...
We looked through the nucs first....two were Queened and had eggs. One was dying out...the queen cell hadn't emerged....so shook the remaining bees out in front of the other hives. Two had polished cells...but no sign of a queen in either. Will be thinking about adding a patch of eggs...to see what they do. Hopefully virgins are in there somewhere....if not some eggs will give us a clue if they make queen cells.
The big surprise came next..... last week we thought Hive 3 must have swarmed as there was no sign of the Green Queen...we found many Queen cells...so took down many of them...leaving 2.
This week when we checked Nuc 5 ...there were eggs.....great.....there was also a big Queen with a tiny bit of green on her back. So that is where she went...we exclaimed! Did she swarm? I think it may be possible that she snuck onto the frame we put in Nuc 5. .....how we did that...I will never know!
When we inspected Hive 3 .....we did find a new Queen...so marked her Blue. She is already laying...fab.
In the Long Hive Blue...there is a lovely Queen...some Bias...so she is well away.
All the hives had enough stores to last until next inspection....it is a real worry with the poor weather but so far all is good.
I do have a question...after all this waffle.....the two nucs...which so far queens
have not been detected....how long can I leave it before queening them...will they be ok for another 10 days? If I put a small amount of comb with eggs in...and they make queen cells....can I take it that there are no virgin queens in the hive? And so then can I use these nucs for mated queens?
The Pond Hives were fine...but will have to move Hive 1 into a nuc this week.. Brood on only 3 frames....plenty of stores and my lovely Queen was still in residence.
In the Bee Yard...
We looked through the nucs first....two were Queened and had eggs. One was dying out...the queen cell hadn't emerged....so shook the remaining bees out in front of the other hives. Two had polished cells...but no sign of a queen in either. Will be thinking about adding a patch of eggs...to see what they do. Hopefully virgins are in there somewhere....if not some eggs will give us a clue if they make queen cells.
The big surprise came next..... last week we thought Hive 3 must have swarmed as there was no sign of the Green Queen...we found many Queen cells...so took down many of them...leaving 2.
This week when we checked Nuc 5 ...there were eggs.....great.....there was also a big Queen with a tiny bit of green on her back. So that is where she went...we exclaimed! Did she swarm? I think it may be possible that she snuck onto the frame we put in Nuc 5. .....how we did that...I will never know!
When we inspected Hive 3 .....we did find a new Queen...so marked her Blue. She is already laying...fab.
In the Long Hive Blue...there is a lovely Queen...some Bias...so she is well away.
All the hives had enough stores to last until next inspection....it is a real worry with the poor weather but so far all is good.
I do have a question...after all this waffle.....the two nucs...which so far queens
have not been detected....how long can I leave it before queening them...will they be ok for another 10 days? If I put a small amount of comb with eggs in...and they make queen cells....can I take it that there are no virgin queens in the hive? And so then can I use these nucs for mated queens?