RoseCottage
Field Bee
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2009
- Messages
- 718
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Near Andover, UK
- Hive Type
- WBC
- Number of Hives
- From 5 to 2 and hopefully a better year
I think for one of our hives this year it was the best thing that happened to them.
They survived the winter well, expanded well, and brought in lots of stores.
Then she died. I don't think she swarmed due to the volume of bees. She was probably superseded. It was the first time we lost our a queen and we handled it poorly - it took us longer than it should to recognise she had gone and to help them recover.
The bees just dealt with it queen cells etc but I kept scratching them out and not understanding what I was seeing.
All the while the colony was bringing in stores.
Eventually the colony sorted things, and me, out and a new docile queen started laying.
There was a dip in numbers for a while but this coincided with a quiet period for forage.
We have taken 140lb of honey from them and they have a strong colony with good brood stores and another super to come off.
The period without the queen really helped them build their stores up.
The queen is dead, long live the queen!
They survived the winter well, expanded well, and brought in lots of stores.
Then she died. I don't think she swarmed due to the volume of bees. She was probably superseded. It was the first time we lost our a queen and we handled it poorly - it took us longer than it should to recognise she had gone and to help them recover.
The bees just dealt with it queen cells etc but I kept scratching them out and not understanding what I was seeing.
All the while the colony was bringing in stores.
Eventually the colony sorted things, and me, out and a new docile queen started laying.
There was a dip in numbers for a while but this coincided with a quiet period for forage.
We have taken 140lb of honey from them and they have a strong colony with good brood stores and another super to come off.
The period without the queen really helped them build their stores up.
The queen is dead, long live the queen!