I last inspected my hives 8 days ago and noticed that the bees in the strongest hives were just starting to make the beginnings of Queen cells.
Today, as soon as the sun came out the bees started clustering around the hive. The noise suggested something was afoot so I quickly got suited up and had a poke about. There were four big capped Queen cells atht ebottom of a couple of frames.. I found the Queen and put her in the lower of the two brood boxes together with a frame of BAIS and a couple of frames of stores.
When I did a similar artificial swarm last year the bees were in a single brood box. It was relatively easy to put the queen and the frame I found here on into a box of foundation. This time I had to juggle the frames around as I had left them on a double BB set up last autumn.
I did what I could to leave the queen mostly drawn foundation - but quite a few of the frames had a sprinkling of capped cells. is this going to affect the outcome?
I shook the bees off most of the frames into the split which is on a new site 6 feet away. But quite a few house bees stayed with the Queen in the split on the original site. Is this a problem?
Many thanks for any advice..
Today, as soon as the sun came out the bees started clustering around the hive. The noise suggested something was afoot so I quickly got suited up and had a poke about. There were four big capped Queen cells atht ebottom of a couple of frames.. I found the Queen and put her in the lower of the two brood boxes together with a frame of BAIS and a couple of frames of stores.
When I did a similar artificial swarm last year the bees were in a single brood box. It was relatively easy to put the queen and the frame I found here on into a box of foundation. This time I had to juggle the frames around as I had left them on a double BB set up last autumn.
I did what I could to leave the queen mostly drawn foundation - but quite a few of the frames had a sprinkling of capped cells. is this going to affect the outcome?
I shook the bees off most of the frames into the split which is on a new site 6 feet away. But quite a few house bees stayed with the Queen in the split on the original site. Is this a problem?
Many thanks for any advice..
