Hive swarmed - are these bees showing queen is in box?

[beesleybees]

Hi guys,

Been a nightmare few weeks for me. Seemed to have threw myself in at the deep end when it comes to bee keeping

Anyway, had a call before from the owner of my out apiary. Bees have swarmed again. Went up but had minimal equipment but ended up getting them in a box.

Can anyone tell me if this pic shows bees telling other bees that the queen is in here. Read this slot but never actually seen anyone show what the bees do

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39955962@N08/7252145566/

 

[REDWOOD]

Hi beesleybees Your pic never downloaded, make sure it's not to big and the right format

 

[beesleybees]

Hi beesleybees Your pic never downloaded, make sure it's not to big and the right format

sorry redwood, no idea why it wont let me upload pic. not the best pic either but it does look better on my iphone.

 

[REDWOOD]

I can't work it out, all i can see is a line of bees on something yellow sorry

 

[beesleybees]

not the best picture I admit

only thing i had to hand were two supers with frames and a correx sheet (yellow bit in photo)

shook swarm ito bucket themn shook the onto the super frames and place correx sheet ontop leaving a slight gap to allow bees to follow in

they did this but a line of bees formed themselves on the edge of the gap i left with their bums in the air and faning their wings like mad.

Is this a sign the queen is in there?

 

[Polyanwood]

A sign, but not a promise.

 

[REDWOOD]

Fanning is usually a good sign coming from a swarm telling the other bees to come inside however fanning is usually a queenless hive

 

[YorkshireBees]

Fanning is usually a good sign coming from a swarm telling the other bees to come inside however fanning is usually a queenless hive

Actually fanning is used by bees at different times.
They use if to tell the other bees to come when they have found the nice swarm collection box.
They also use it when a Virgin Queen has gone on a mating flight to help identify the hive for her to find her way back.

In my experience of swarm collecting I have never seen bees fan on the box / hive / polynuc I was using for collecting them if the queen was not inside.
Often when I see bees faning in numbers then I can go away and come back in the evening to collect them.

 

[Polyanwood]

The swarms with no queen tend to go into the hive more slowly.

 

[Silly Bee]

Have you finished the bathroom yet Bri.

 

[YorkshireBees]

The swarms with no queen tend to go into the hive more slowly.

In My experience if you haven't got the queen in the box / hive they not only do not fan but come back out of the box / hive after a very short time!

The photo attached was taken this morning when I hived the swarm collected yesterday into a polynuc. Bees fanning like mad round the entrance is always a good sign in this circumstance!

 

[susbees]

The swarms with no queen tend to go into the hive more slowly.

Or all take to the air and flood into the adjacent swarm and cut-out next to that (left skepped overnight - previous experience of Q- swarm was that they all legged it next day into a row of apideas and had to be removed and given open brood to make their own!).

No idea what happened to that first queen - easy collect if by floodlights. Revisited the site next morning and no sign of the queen in the remaining hundred bee cluster.

Ah well, two stronger hives (and a spare on site ready for occupation )