wildrover
New Bee
I am still very new to this so please be patient! I had 2 colonies of bees earlier this year and they seemed to be settling in well. I positioned both hives facing up a gentle slope into my orchard (we live on a small holding). During the first few weeks the weather was not good so i fed them with fondant but once the weather improved they made themselves very busy. On the last few inspections i began to notice how different they were. Colony A was very gentle, I always saw the queen, lots of eggs and stores and I added a super 2 weeks ago which they are now filling well.
Colony B seemed more sluggish, less gentle, less eggs. When i inspected last Monday they were downright hostile and not suprisingly I found queen cells.
Today they swarmed. It was fascinating actually as I was weeding, the noise got louder and louder and then there was a large cloud of bees.
They are currently situated on a fence post on the edge of my veg bed!
I have the 2 polystyrene nuc boxes that i transported the bees in and plenty of brood frames so do i try to collect as many bees as possible from the fence post and try to shake them into the polynuc? Then what? Will the colony they left now be queenless or will one of those queen cells have hatched? Do i need to feed the old colony to help build it up again? Help gratefully recieved xxx
Colony B seemed more sluggish, less gentle, less eggs. When i inspected last Monday they were downright hostile and not suprisingly I found queen cells.
Today they swarmed. It was fascinating actually as I was weeding, the noise got louder and louder and then there was a large cloud of bees.
They are currently situated on a fence post on the edge of my veg bed!
I have the 2 polystyrene nuc boxes that i transported the bees in and plenty of brood frames so do i try to collect as many bees as possible from the fence post and try to shake them into the polynuc? Then what? Will the colony they left now be queenless or will one of those queen cells have hatched? Do i need to feed the old colony to help build it up again? Help gratefully recieved xxx