davidharradine
New Bee
I did an artificial swarm a week ago, as I'd been surprised to find a dozen queen cells, some capped, in my colony.
Today I had a quick look in the new hive (the one I'd put the old queen in) as there didn't seem to be much going on... and she wasn't there, so they must have swarmed anyway, after I'd split them.
So now I'm a bit sad.
There were a couple of emergency queen cells in the new hive, with larva. There are only about 3 frames of bees in there, but they do seem to be drawing out foundation and have already built up some honey and pollen stores.
Meanwhile all is well in the old hive, with a juicy capped queen cell and lots of busy bees.
So...what do you think I should do?
Get rid of the emergency queen cells in the new hive and reunite the colonies now?
Let both hives make new queens and reunite later?
Or (and this is the one I'd really like to do as I really wanted to have 2 colonies by the end of this year) let them both make new queens and hope that as it's still quite early in the year that there's plenty of time for both colonies to build up strongly by the autumn?
Any advice much appreciated.
Thanks
David
Today I had a quick look in the new hive (the one I'd put the old queen in) as there didn't seem to be much going on... and she wasn't there, so they must have swarmed anyway, after I'd split them.
So now I'm a bit sad.
There were a couple of emergency queen cells in the new hive, with larva. There are only about 3 frames of bees in there, but they do seem to be drawing out foundation and have already built up some honey and pollen stores.
Meanwhile all is well in the old hive, with a juicy capped queen cell and lots of busy bees.
So...what do you think I should do?
Get rid of the emergency queen cells in the new hive and reunite the colonies now?
Let both hives make new queens and reunite later?
Or (and this is the one I'd really like to do as I really wanted to have 2 colonies by the end of this year) let them both make new queens and hope that as it's still quite early in the year that there's plenty of time for both colonies to build up strongly by the autumn?
Any advice much appreciated.
Thanks
David
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