First inspection - capped QC and Q

[Craftypint]

I just did my first inspection of the year and found the queen and then 6 uncapped QC and 1 capped. 5 of the QC were around the edges of frames but the capped one was more in the middle. Wasn't sure if this was likely to be a swarm or supercedure and if swarm I was very lucky that the queen hadn't already swarmed. Having read StephenT's recent thread I didn't want to risk leaving it so carried out a 'Nucleus' method artificial swarm from the Haynes book, leaving 2 uncapped QC.

The hive didn't look rammed with bees, there was BIAS on 5 frames and plenty of stores on the others (12x14 single bb).

Does this seem sensible? I'm a bit concerned having split them with some cold nights still to come (although I'm in London so warmer than most places). I'm guessing that if it was supercedure they'll just do it again in the nuc and if one of the boxes ends up without a queen I can combine the 2 boxes again in a few weeks?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

seven QC's? regardless of the amount of brood - they were swarming. So you did right
you say 'plenty of stores' - but more importantly, how much laying space was left?

 

[Erichalfbee]

The hive didn't look rammed with bees, there was BIAS on 5 frames and plenty of stores on the others (12x14 single bb).

Always a problem if you don't get the autumn feeding balance right. Too many stores and the queen runs out of room to lay and the bees make swarm preparations. It's handy to have some drawn comb to swap in so something to think about getting for next year. I always keep some in the freezer or in a waxmoth proof box

 

[hemo]

Yes, laying space available ? If there was little due to mostly stores on the other 6 frames then they will have decided space was lacking and time to move on, 14 x 12 or any other size box matters not if the colony is over fed in Autumn and laying space is of a premium now. Once you get to know your bees better and how frugal or not they are you can adjust feeding in Autumn accordingly.
We often talk about under feeding but over feeding also has it's consequence, with a few more years under your belt hefting can be a good useful tool in judging colony weight.

 

[Craftypint]

Thanks for the replies.

Once I saw all the queen cells my measured approach to the inspection went a bit haywire. From memory, it looked like the brood didn't fill each frame and there was space around but then I'm also thinking there was new glistening stores in some of that.

On overfeeding, I used the weighing both sides method and floor/bb/cb was 35kg at the start of October, 33kg at end of November, then as it started dropping in January I added 2kg of fondant. 27kg end of Feb and around 25kg last week. Bees bringing in lots of pollen.

It's hard to get an idea of what I should be seeing as this is the only hive I've seen inside. We started the local course last year which went virtual before the days at the apiary, which is still closed. The leader of the course gave me a colony and has helped over the phone but as he was a retired doctor who'd rejoined the NHS last spring I didn't want to bother him too much. Going 14x12 doesn't help either as almost all the information I can find about expected weight etc refers to deep national bb. I think the answer is to up the number of hives so I have some comparisons to make and I've got a couple of extra hives in preparation.

A small question, the Haynes manual said to fill the nuc entrance with grass. How tightly packed should that be? I put quite a loose filling that still completely filled the entrance and they'd pushed it all out of the way in a couple of hours.