knotty
New Bee
- Joined
- May 29, 2010
- Messages
- 21
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Lymm, Cheshire
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 2.5ish The 0.5 is an ish
Hi Folks,
Please rescue my from my self inflicted newbie error!
I'm a new beek and managed to overwinter my first nuc (now a full national hive).
Last weekend I found 3x queen cells . As they were towards the corners of the frames and I had 7 frames caped brood, a frame of eggs & "fair amount" of bees my thinking was swarm control. My queen in this hive is not marked and i have difficulty finding her. I attempted a split by making up a new nuc by taking out a capped queen cell, a frame of capped brood and shook in some bees from above the queen excluder as I could not find the queen. I replaced frames in the original hive with new foundation at the edges. My error is that I left the original hive in place and put the new nuc a few yards away.
Today (1 week later) my hive inspection reveals 4 x new capped queen cells and the bees are only covering the old frames I have 3 supers on this hive, the first two full of bees. Any ideas as to how to deal with the QC appreciated.
Have they already swarmed? I can't see any "taken down cells" and there still appear to be a fair amount of bees (although not on the new foundation) and two supers full of nectar. Perhaps I should do another split but move the original hive (which is what I should have done last time!).
Thanks for your help beeks.
Please rescue my from my self inflicted newbie error!
I'm a new beek and managed to overwinter my first nuc (now a full national hive).
Last weekend I found 3x queen cells . As they were towards the corners of the frames and I had 7 frames caped brood, a frame of eggs & "fair amount" of bees my thinking was swarm control. My queen in this hive is not marked and i have difficulty finding her. I attempted a split by making up a new nuc by taking out a capped queen cell, a frame of capped brood and shook in some bees from above the queen excluder as I could not find the queen. I replaced frames in the original hive with new foundation at the edges. My error is that I left the original hive in place and put the new nuc a few yards away.
Today (1 week later) my hive inspection reveals 4 x new capped queen cells and the bees are only covering the old frames I have 3 supers on this hive, the first two full of bees. Any ideas as to how to deal with the QC appreciated.
Have they already swarmed? I can't see any "taken down cells" and there still appear to be a fair amount of bees (although not on the new foundation) and two supers full of nectar. Perhaps I should do another split but move the original hive (which is what I should have done last time!).
Thanks for your help beeks.