keith pierce
Field Bee
I popped into the apairy this eve to give it a quick look over and to find, clip and mark a few queens in nuc boxes.
a hive that i was getting ready for the heather that has 3 full supers on and was bursting with bees , looked very quiet as i was passing.I Lifted the roof and crown board to see little or no bees at all. i had broke down all the queen cells a week ago and had left on big juicy cell in the midlle of the nest. a few day later i had broke down any remaining cells and the virgen queen was emerging , as could see her chewing her way out. A few days later i had seen the hive exploding and i expected she was going out on her mating flight.I went through the hive and found another cell that i had left behind, that must of been covered with bees and i did not see it.
It must of been a monster swarm.
They were my favorite colony and were so quiet and calm on the comb, even when they were queenless. Worst still is that they never went into my bait hive.I hope that they went into some other beekeepers hive and not into the cavity of a tree.
I decided then to find a few queen in nucs that had come into lay. After i clip and mark a queen i always put her in a match box to calm down and let the paint dry off.i had clipped and marked about 5 and was returning the last one to the nuc when as i gently opened the match box i notice something funny going on. i had forgot to put the second last queen into the nuc and had popped the last queen in with her and they were trying to kill one another with a worker stuck in the middle.As i turned in a hurry to get another matchbox to put one of the queens in, i walked into the branch of an apple tree and nearly knocked myself out. Both of them looked as if they were damaged and all i could do was to pop them both into queen gages and hope that they will survive. Fingers crossed and i will have a look tomorrow.
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a hive that i was getting ready for the heather that has 3 full supers on and was bursting with bees , looked very quiet as i was passing.I Lifted the roof and crown board to see little or no bees at all. i had broke down all the queen cells a week ago and had left on big juicy cell in the midlle of the nest. a few day later i had broke down any remaining cells and the virgen queen was emerging , as could see her chewing her way out. A few days later i had seen the hive exploding and i expected she was going out on her mating flight.I went through the hive and found another cell that i had left behind, that must of been covered with bees and i did not see it.
It must of been a monster swarm.
They were my favorite colony and were so quiet and calm on the comb, even when they were queenless. Worst still is that they never went into my bait hive.I hope that they went into some other beekeepers hive and not into the cavity of a tree.
I decided then to find a few queen in nucs that had come into lay. After i clip and mark a queen i always put her in a match box to calm down and let the paint dry off.i had clipped and marked about 5 and was returning the last one to the nuc when as i gently opened the match box i notice something funny going on. i had forgot to put the second last queen into the nuc and had popped the last queen in with her and they were trying to kill one another with a worker stuck in the middle.As i turned in a hurry to get another matchbox to put one of the queens in, i walked into the branch of an apple tree and nearly knocked myself out. Both of them looked as if they were damaged and all i could do was to pop them both into queen gages and hope that they will survive. Fingers crossed and i will have a look tomorrow.
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lol lol lol
