birdsandbees
Field Bee
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2015
- Messages
- 814
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Worcester
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 20 ish
Well, after reading another thread here's my confession...
I can vouch for 'classic' Supersedure cells not also being swarm cells, I had a failing queen (looked injured), they made three decent cells on the face of the comb, next time I went in failing queen had gone (not swarmed) and no eggs only young larvae, so I reduced to one decent cell and left them to it, what I should have done is gone back into them as they'd made other cells and yesterday when I arrived at the apiary they started spewing out swarms! two in quick succession!
these two joined together as one bigger swarm, once I had managed to contain them I know there was multiple virgins as two full Nucs later with Virgin queens (as I saw them going in) there was still a small swarm remaining that was moving between trees.
Once I'd gotten into the hive I shook the bees from the frames and found further cells, none of which were on the bottom of frames each containing a fully formed active queen (which I caged bar one)
Lesson learned and I wont be making that silly mistake again!
Never assume you know what they are thinking!!!
I can vouch for 'classic' Supersedure cells not also being swarm cells, I had a failing queen (looked injured), they made three decent cells on the face of the comb, next time I went in failing queen had gone (not swarmed) and no eggs only young larvae, so I reduced to one decent cell and left them to it, what I should have done is gone back into them as they'd made other cells and yesterday when I arrived at the apiary they started spewing out swarms! two in quick succession!
these two joined together as one bigger swarm, once I had managed to contain them I know there was multiple virgins as two full Nucs later with Virgin queens (as I saw them going in) there was still a small swarm remaining that was moving between trees.
Once I'd gotten into the hive I shook the bees from the frames and found further cells, none of which were on the bottom of frames each containing a fully formed active queen (which I caged bar one)
Lesson learned and I wont be making that silly mistake again!
Never assume you know what they are thinking!!!