Italian Bees...Dislike :(

[susbees]

The prime rescued from a gable end behind a block fire wall with a beaker late Tuesday has driven me nuts. Not entirely their fault I may add. But

Hived in the dark and a QE put in place we weren't here Wednesday til 19.30 when I nipped across to the apiary to check on them to find...

Approx 20 bees cowering in the box. I wandered the apiary somewhat despondent at their ingratitude. And wondering which of the neighbours (ok, which neighbour...) had gained them.

I did note absent mindedly that a couple of the 30 apideas on the apiary had maybe twenty bees hanging out and that it was quite a warm night.

Thursday morning dawned, mid-morning I noticed the hanging out bees on one box was greater and cracked the lid. Not a mm of unfilled space...Italian flippin' bees in the feeder and all stops to the door and more. The next apidea on that stand likewise. It seems that at least part of the swarm was still in residence. So either we missed the queen...not a text book recovery, not the space in that tiny attic to walk them in and not sure with the red light they do this? Anyone know? Amazing how many bees can cram into an apidea...neither marked queen was damaged luckily, the bees were shaken back in and order was restored with the nearest apideas closed and moved to the bee shed.

Yesterday pm I marked the bottom apidea stand queens and found nothing untoward. This evening went to check on the last three on the apiary without brood before they go to the breeding group this weekend.

Pandemonium! Italian flippin' bees in most of the middle apideas and a weakish commercial nuc. All have QEs on, but made no odds.

Yes, I know we should have an out apiary somewhere, but we don't need one for anything else this year and our own bees have shown no interest in the apideas. Gave the swarm a caged queen yesterday morning so hopefully they will settle down. Sometime. And gave them a feeder tonight which I bet they ignore out of spite.

Is it normal for a large Q- swarm to move in with random neighbours?!

 

[Crg]

Is it normal for a large Q- swarm to move in with random neighbours?!

It's what I'd expect of any queenless/broodless bees (not sure why you seem to think it's because they're supposedly italian), they're not likely to stay put without a queen. A few of them will hunt around find a colony with a queen and start fanning and all the rest will follow.

You can try giving them a frame of brood and they'll probably stay.

 

[susbees]

It's what I'd expect of any queenless/broodless bees (not sure why you seem to think it's because they're supposedly italian), they're not likely to stay put without a queen. A few of them will hunt around find a colony with a queen and start fanning and all the rest will follow.

You can try giving them a frame of brood and they'll probably stay.

The rationale being that apideas are relatively poorly defended with a big slab of fondant in the back and Italians are supposedly adept robbers?

 

[jasonahood]

The rationale being that apideas are relatively poorly defended with a big slab of fondant in the back and Italians are supposedly adept robbers?

If they were robbing i'd have thought you'd have seen fighting and dead bees.

 

[jasonahood]

If they were robbing i'd have thought you'd have seen fighting and dead bees.

Also... you state you have poorly defended mini-nucs laden with foundant, anything could be robbing them, your logic that it's italian bee's on the basis that you "suppose" them to be adept robbers seems a litte skewed.

 

[DanBee]

If they were robbing i'd have thought you'd have seen fighting and dead bees.

And if they were robbing they'd have taken it back home somewhere, not piled in to sit it out until you came along