Introducing Queens

[Erichalfbee]

However I am starting to wonder; If summer bees usually last about 6 weeks. And it is usually older bees that swarm. Then surely after 5 bloodless weeks, I would have virtually no bees left! The population seemed to drop quickly the first 2/3 weeks, then remained stable. And forging activity seems to have increased recently. There is no sign of drone activity in this hive.

A swarm comprises bees of ALL ages, even 3 day old bees that have just grown up to fly. They are needed to raise the brood. Even drones go with swarms.
Bees age because they rear brood. It is the age of their hypo pharyngeal glands, being exhausted by feeding brood, that turn them into guards then foragers.
So your bees will live a long time.

Better luck with your other hive and for letting us know what the outcome is

 

[bobba]

Thanks Erichalfbee,

I think I got the idea about the older bees swarming from a documentary called "more than honey". I did think, about the nurse bee thing, but had assumed some of the older bees would revert to nursing duty.

Your explanation makes far more scene.

I had no time to open hives today so hope to look in H1 tomorrow.

I had a quick look at the hives today, there was a crazy amount of activity at the swarm hive (H2). It looked like orientation flights, lots of them were facing the hive and slowly flying up, then circling for a bit before going back in.

And at H1 I saw a bee climbing on the back of a drone and trying to sting it.

 

[bobba]

Another dead queen in the cage, no eggs, brood or sightings of a live queen.

With hindsight I could have ordered 1 queen. Then put her in a mini Nuc with 2 frames from my strongest hive. Once she was laying I would have had test frames to use.

So it has been an expensive lesson.

I was beginning to question if I can distinguish capped brood from honey stores. So I stabbed a few of patches to be 100% certain. And yep it was all honey.

So I guess the best thing I can do now is press on with winter prep and hope for the best.

Thanks as always.

 

[bobba]

Just found a queen in hive 2

Just as i was putting the crown board back on after an inspection, she flew out of nowhere with some other bees and landed on some netting I have around my hives. Then she flew away.

I waited, thinking was that the queen or a drone?

Then she flew back and landed on the crown board again. I was thinking of flipping the crown board with her on it to get her back in the hive, when she few a bit and landed again. So I put a super I use an eak back on, then took a quick pic and put the roof back on.

So now I have a queen in the space above the crown board!

I think I will pop back in an hour and have a peep and see if she has gone back down.

Still no eggs or brood though.

 

[bobba]

Just had a peep, she went back down.

My old queen had an solid orange/yellow color abdomen. The stripy abdomen on my new queen camouflages her among the workers very well. Its not what my eyes were looking for.

So I guess it was not the primary swarm that I caught after all. And assume the missing bees from the swarm must have gone back into the original hive.

Sometimes beekeeping feels like "forensic science", trying to reconstruct what happened from the available evidence.