white50car
New Bee
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2011
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Lancashire
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 3
I am a second year bee keeper and am feeling a little overwelmed at the moment. The more I learn about beekeeping the more I realise, I know nothing.
Two days ago I knocked down all the queen cells in a colony and added a second brood box to create room and to try and prevent them swarming. I didn't feel I could do an artificial swarm as it was too cold to spend ages trying to find the unmarked queen.
The colony didn't appreciate my efforts and when the sun came out again yesterday, they swarmed, much to the consternation of my neighbours, one of whom phoned the police. I had visions of the police coming to arrest the bees.
I caught the swarm and put it in another hive and put a queen excluder between the bottom of the brood box and the mesh floor.
Questions:-
1. Will the queen have slimmed down to such an extent that she can fit through the QX? In which case she might go again (this happened to me last year)
2. In the original hive which now has no queen cells, will the workers be able to make an emergency queen cell and if they can, is it likely to be any good?
3. Should I just see if I can buy a new queen?
4. There is no shortage of queen cells with other beekeepers, should I try grafting a queen cell in place?
I am sure I have made innumerable errors in this process and got myself into a pickle but any advice would be most welcome.
Thanks
Gill
Two days ago I knocked down all the queen cells in a colony and added a second brood box to create room and to try and prevent them swarming. I didn't feel I could do an artificial swarm as it was too cold to spend ages trying to find the unmarked queen.
The colony didn't appreciate my efforts and when the sun came out again yesterday, they swarmed, much to the consternation of my neighbours, one of whom phoned the police. I had visions of the police coming to arrest the bees.
I caught the swarm and put it in another hive and put a queen excluder between the bottom of the brood box and the mesh floor.
Questions:-
1. Will the queen have slimmed down to such an extent that she can fit through the QX? In which case she might go again (this happened to me last year)
2. In the original hive which now has no queen cells, will the workers be able to make an emergency queen cell and if they can, is it likely to be any good?
3. Should I just see if I can buy a new queen?
4. There is no shortage of queen cells with other beekeepers, should I try grafting a queen cell in place?
I am sure I have made innumerable errors in this process and got myself into a pickle but any advice would be most welcome.
Thanks
Gill