My latest cock up

[nonstandard]

While pulling down some queen cells in a good colony about two weeks ago I saved four and put them in an incubator I have. Three hatched a week later and I introduced one to a hive that had gone drone layer (after I tipped them out first); the other two I put in a couple of queen cages and popped them in a super above a queenright colony.

At the time I was struggling to find any queen cages, but after scratching round I managed a couple, (I have since found the others). Anyway it was all done in a bit of a rush as we were supposed to be on our way out somewhere when the queens hatched.

On Friday we inspected the hives and both queens were still doing well but as the weather was changing fast I didn't get chance to make up a couple of mini-nucs for the caged queens. Today the sun shone briefly so I set of to prepare the mini-nucs and intended to pop a queen cage in each. My first job was to check the cages in the super.

Then I spotted my mistake; one of the cages I had picked up was second hand, which I knew and had the base filled with concrete like fondant, which I also knew what I hadn't realised was that the bl**dy tab was missing.

So I now have a colony with the original queen in the brood box and potentially a virgin somewhere above the excluder unless she has already squeezed through.

What I did was remove both supers and check the excluder, then I checked the brood box to find the original queen and eggs present (phew). I put the excluder back on, shook/brushed all the bees from one super into the other, put the bee-less super back on followed by a horsley board (with the excluder covered and the entrance open) and put the second super on top obviously with crownboard and roof.

My thoughts are that the flying bees will find their way out through the horsley board and return to the brood box and hopefully I should be able to spot the virgin queen within the reduced population of the top super.

If she has wriggled through the excluder I can only hope that she has been killed or thrown out as this is one of my best colonies.

Does anyone else have any suggestions as to how to locate the virgin queen or how to manage my cock up.

 

[rae]

They will sort it out if you don't!

Virgins can get through excluders. So she may be in the bottom and dead already.

I would move the supers, stick them on a different hive stand with a roof and wait 2 hours. All of the workers will have cleared off, the queen (if present) will remain, probably with a small cluster.

 

[enrico]

They will sort it out if you don't!

Virgins can get through excluders. So she may be in the bottom and dead already.

I would move the supers, stick them on a different hive stand with a roof and wait 2 hours. All of the workers will have cleared off, the queen (if present) will remain, probably with a small cluster.

. Perfect answer
E

 

[oliver90owner]

Perfect answer



With the proviso that it only means 'some' queens, not 'all'.

Pedantic, some might say, but I doubt they would even recognise the subtlety of the difference.

RAB

 

[nonstandard]

Thanks guys,

I would have probably come up with that yesterday but it was wet and late in the day and the bees were not flying. This morning is bright and they are out, so I will suit up and get on with it.

 

[drstitson]

if the fondant compartment was filled with set fondant how did the virgin reach the exit????

 

[nonstandard]

One can only assume that they chewed it out unless they have a windy-pick hidden somewhere in the hive