look or leave?

[Hengest]

Hi all
My bees arrived on Friday - full colony in a national hive. Acquired from an elderly gentlemen very much of the don't look if you don't need to mindset. He had looked(briefly I suspect) when he had prepared them to move them over to my place and advised me to move to double brood. I helped him move them over and part of the assembly was a full super of honey - absolutely full and a partly filled one. I was advised to leave them alone until after the weekend ( which I have).

I 've got the necessary kit to inspect, am physically (if not emotionally) ready to do swarm control should it be necessary (going for the old queen into a nucleus method to start with ) and have various spares - a roof, brood box, floor and supers.

However the weather is now rubbish - I am stuck at work during the day until Friday and the temperature and general forecast does not hold out much hope for ideal inspection conditions before Friday.

Should I wait till good weather or peek sooner - I really don't want half my bees jiggering off before the weekend. Does poor weather deter swarming?

Any views welcome (even if its "you should have looked on Sunday you daft beggar")

 

[dn170221]

Were there queen cells when you moved to your apiary?

 

[Pete D]

Did you not inspect them in situ before you got them ?
check for disease ?, laying queen etc

 

[Hengest]

Hi - they were inspected by the RBI a while before they were moved and pronounced ok. And the chap selling was introduced via my branch but his personal circumstance were not good - he is getting on and his Mrs is seriously ill. So I have taken them sight unseen which is far from ideal but is the situation I am in. So I don't know if there are queen cells but I do know there is a good lot of bees and they seem to be in good humour. Lots of orientation flights and much tooing and froing in the last few days. Seemed very gentle when he let them out and put the supers back on compared to some I have seen.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

"Don't look a gift hive in the brood box"

Others more experienced will have better ideas, but personally I would find a mate to help slip an extra BB under (a completely dry process given the heavy lifting) and, in the spirit of my benefactor's beekeeping, which should linger a little while, throw out a bait hive and hope I get another colony. Then you can hav ea good rummage in due course.

It sounds like a heck of a gift and I appreciate your "don't look a gift-horse in the mouth" attitude; good luck.

This is all conditioned on your not being in a shared apiary, of course; they will have sensible rules of quarantine etc.

 

[Cazza]

It really is early for swarming, though not impossible. You would be very very unlucky if this happened between now and Friday.
I would happily wait until then if it was me.
Cazza

 

[dn170221]

It really is early for swarming, though not impossible. You would be very very unlucky if this happened between now and Friday.
I would happily wait until then if it was me.
Cazza

 

[Hengest]

Thanks all and Cazza for that reassurance.

Will leave till Friday and hopfully better weather