New hive/swarm

[user 20297]

Nine of my ten colonies are very dark bees. When it's warm they are calm and easy to work with; when it's cold they can get a bit irritated. I must be part bee.

 

[Murox]

I encountered something I have not met before with a small swarm I caught and hived/nuc ed just over a week (10 days) ago. Checked their progress today and found two sealed queen cells. Ive left them to it; anyone encountered that before?

 

[Erichalfbee]

I encountered something I have not met before with a small swarm I caught and hived/nuc ed just over a week (10 days) ago. Checked their progress today and found two sealed queen cells. Ive left them to it; anyone encountered that before?

Old queen being replaced after swarming.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Old queen being replaced after swarming.

happens frequently, all the hassle of swarming and working flat out to repopulate a new home often pushes them towards burnout.

 

[Murox]

Old queen being replaced after swarming.

happens frequently, all the hassle of swarming and working flat out to repopulate a new home often pushes them towards burnout.

Yes, just not seen it before.

 

[user 20297]

I encountered something I have not met before with a small swarm I caught and hived/nuc ed just over a week (10 days) ago. Checked their progress today and found two sealed queen cells. Ive left them to it; anyone encountered that before?

Last year I had one swarm that appeared to have two attempts at making a suitable queen; they took ages to settle into a rhythm and were as ratty as flip for the rest of the summer. But it was worth it; the resulting colony is so far my most productive.

 

[Aerelon82]

Ooh, had not expected that a new swarm might go and replace the queen. As mentioned above all that hassle to swarm and repopulate to then go and replace the queen. Poor girl .

Will have to keep an eye on ours in case. It is a Queen (yellow dot) that left with her gang. Clipped, so managed to catch and put in a nuc. Up to that point of swarming she had been very busy and now Very busy in the nuc so expect will have to keep a close eye on that one as poor girl must be exhausted!!

To be honest, we'd tried to practice swarm control so surprised that the hive swarmed in the first place as 2 brood box and a number of new frames in them which hadn't been drawn out yet, both in lower and upper box. As we're fairly new, expect we did something not quite right, but we're learning a lot as time goes on.

 

[drex]

New foundation does give them work to do, but it takes a while for them to draw it out, so no immediate extra space for queen to lay. Anyway, in my experience adding space does not stop swarming if that is their intention

 

[Curly green finger's]

happens frequently, all the hassle of swarming and working flat out to repopulate a new home often pushes them towards burnout.

I’ve had them replace nuced queens this season majority are in there 3/4 year.

 

[Aerelon82]

New foundation does give them work to do, but it takes a while for them to draw it out, so no immediate extra space for queen to lay. Anyway, in my experience adding space does not stop swarming if that is their intention

Thanks for your comment. We did wonder that too. Although we had added a number of new frames of foundation in the brood box, we hadn't interspersed, in the good weather, between the brood and had placed them towards the back of the hive and it took them some time to draw them out. In the meantime they had started back filling the emerged brood area with nectar and as you said, there's no immediate space for the queen to lay, so I guess that kicked in the instinct to swarm. It's our first year actually dealing with the hive and swarming instinct and we have certainly learned a lot and hopefully will be better at swarm control / prevention next year.