First inspection of the season

[gerrysw]

Re Q3
I suspect that you are seeing supercedure , possibly the bees are not happy with the overwintered queen. As I am sure you know it is too early for swarming. Best to leave well alone and let nature take its course.

 

[Cedar]

Well, got back in to the hives today. Re Q Cells 1 is nicely capped and the second is well on the way to being capped. The bees in this hive are very' pingy'. There is more brood than we saw last week in the top box so the old queen is still laying. I also got to look in the bottom brood box and found more capped brood and larvae on a couple of frames. No eggs though. I moved a frame with stores from either side of the brood and inserted frames with drawn comb.

The other two hives are doing well, they also have brood in both boxes but these two have eggs and all stage larvae in both. Bees a lot calmer.
C

 

[BeeJayBee]

Out of interest, Cedar, did you spot any drone cells?

 

[Cedar]

Yes in all 3 hives.
C

 

[Tom Bick]

Early supercedure yes but just to add a bit of confusion bees sometimes swarm when superseding especially in the summer months. This may be a bit early for the supercedure to trigger a swarm and also to early for a successful supercedure but time will tell.

 

[Cedar]

I'm hoping as their are plenty of Beeks within a couple of miles of me including a training apiary of over 100 hives that lack of drones won't be an issue. All I can do is watch and wait. C

 

[beeno]

Early supercedure yes but just to add a bit of confusion bees sometimes swarm when superseding especially in the summer months. This may be a bit early for the supercedure to trigger a swarm and also to early for a successful supercedure but time will tell.

Hi Tom,
I am thinking like you, but I am only a newbie. The old queen is not doing too badly by the sounds of it. I would want to make up a nuc to save her in the short term until I new all was well in the hive with the new queen?