dudley
House Bee
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2009
- Messages
- 154
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Kent uk
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 2 apiary's 1 with 3 hives 2nd with 5 hives
What should I do?
I started keeping bees only last year with two nuc’s. Both colonies came through the winter very well but unfortunately now are both only drone laying. I had to keep knocking back Queen cells earlier in the year and one did swarm so I decided to artificially swarm the other hive before it swarmed too, and I hived it 5 miles away.
I have a well marked easy to find queen in one hive, so if I re-queen or combine I can knock her on the head, but the other queen has been impossible to find so far.
I do have the opportunity to combine as I have collected three swarms this year and have hived these only a few feet from these two drone laying hives.
But which swarms do I use or should I buy new queens?
Swarm 1, was only taken last week. I hived them in a 5 frame nuc box so they are only just starting to draw comb.
Swarm 2, was taken in May. On inspection today it looks like it too has swarmed or re-queened as I could not see eggs, the queen looks very small, and I found an old queen cell. And this is even though they have only drawn seven 14x12 frames and still have several frames undrawn, so space was not an issue. But I think this queen may be a virgin.
Swarm 3, was taken seven weeks ago and is doing well. I have marked the queen, there are eggs and a nice pattern of brood but I found a single capped queen cell, So I think they want to replace their queen.
So should I use any of these swarms to combine?
Remove the frame from Swarm 3 that has the capped Queen cell and put it in one of my drone laying hives, or try and buy replacement queens?
Thank you.
I started keeping bees only last year with two nuc’s. Both colonies came through the winter very well but unfortunately now are both only drone laying. I had to keep knocking back Queen cells earlier in the year and one did swarm so I decided to artificially swarm the other hive before it swarmed too, and I hived it 5 miles away.
I have a well marked easy to find queen in one hive, so if I re-queen or combine I can knock her on the head, but the other queen has been impossible to find so far.
I do have the opportunity to combine as I have collected three swarms this year and have hived these only a few feet from these two drone laying hives.
But which swarms do I use or should I buy new queens?
Swarm 1, was only taken last week. I hived them in a 5 frame nuc box so they are only just starting to draw comb.
Swarm 2, was taken in May. On inspection today it looks like it too has swarmed or re-queened as I could not see eggs, the queen looks very small, and I found an old queen cell. And this is even though they have only drawn seven 14x12 frames and still have several frames undrawn, so space was not an issue. But I think this queen may be a virgin.
Swarm 3, was taken seven weeks ago and is doing well. I have marked the queen, there are eggs and a nice pattern of brood but I found a single capped queen cell, So I think they want to replace their queen.
So should I use any of these swarms to combine?
Remove the frame from Swarm 3 that has the capped Queen cell and put it in one of my drone laying hives, or try and buy replacement queens?
Thank you.
