Glenviewbee
House Bee
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2012
- Messages
- 232
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- West Cornwall
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 3
The background:
Colony with 2013 queen, building nicely during April/May.
Numpty newbie (me) managed to relocate HM when making a nuc with 2 QC's from hive when I had Demaree'd the colony.
The next inspection showed me multiple creations of QC in response to me relocating queen so I pared down to 2 good looking unsealed cells (I wasn't sure of what I'd done until the next week when I found HM in the nuc...)
The next week (23rd May) I culled back to one QC (and found HM laying merrily in nuc on other side of apiary)
By my calculations the VQ would emerge 29th May, hopefully mate June 6 so poss brood 16th so left them to it.
To today.... was walking up by the apiary at 11 this am (beautiful day) to find a mass of swirling bees in the air with loads of noise. The swarm were congregating on a fence post about 2m away from the hive so I went off to get my kit and equipment.
By the time I returned (10mins) they had settled quietly on the post so I set about collecting them in a box by brushing them off the post (bit tricky - chicken wire, brambles, hawthorn all in the fence line. I set up a BB on the other side of the apiary with a sheet leading up to it and dumped the bees into the box and on the sheet. I had to make about 6 trips as it was tricky getting the bees.
Anyhoo - I'm pretty sure I saw the queen go in the brood box (I have 6 frames of foundation in there) and eventually everything seemed to settle down - fingers crossed.
However I am confused.....I have done a quick check of the colony from where the swarm came - there is the remains of 1 opened QC, lots of stores nectar and pollen, and eggs - no larvae and no other QC's
So - has the new queen emerged, mated, started laying (just) and now the colony has decided to swarm? Does this happen? Presumably if new emergency QC's are created this is what has happened - will have to wait and see.
Obviously my estimated date-line is also a bit skew-if
Colony with 2013 queen, building nicely during April/May.
Numpty newbie (me) managed to relocate HM when making a nuc with 2 QC's from hive when I had Demaree'd the colony.
The next inspection showed me multiple creations of QC in response to me relocating queen so I pared down to 2 good looking unsealed cells (I wasn't sure of what I'd done until the next week when I found HM in the nuc...)
The next week (23rd May) I culled back to one QC (and found HM laying merrily in nuc on other side of apiary)
By my calculations the VQ would emerge 29th May, hopefully mate June 6 so poss brood 16th so left them to it.
To today.... was walking up by the apiary at 11 this am (beautiful day) to find a mass of swirling bees in the air with loads of noise. The swarm were congregating on a fence post about 2m away from the hive so I went off to get my kit and equipment.
By the time I returned (10mins) they had settled quietly on the post so I set about collecting them in a box by brushing them off the post (bit tricky - chicken wire, brambles, hawthorn all in the fence line. I set up a BB on the other side of the apiary with a sheet leading up to it and dumped the bees into the box and on the sheet. I had to make about 6 trips as it was tricky getting the bees.
Anyhoo - I'm pretty sure I saw the queen go in the brood box (I have 6 frames of foundation in there) and eventually everything seemed to settle down - fingers crossed.
However I am confused.....I have done a quick check of the colony from where the swarm came - there is the remains of 1 opened QC, lots of stores nectar and pollen, and eggs - no larvae and no other QC's
So - has the new queen emerged, mated, started laying (just) and now the colony has decided to swarm? Does this happen? Presumably if new emergency QC's are created this is what has happened - will have to wait and see.
Obviously my estimated date-line is also a bit skew-if
