- Joined
- May 29, 2010
- Messages
- 6,213
- Reaction score
- 2
- Location
- Norwich
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 3 National Hives & 1 Observation Hive.(Indoors) & lots of empty boxes..
Arrived home today at approx noon to see a swarm settling on my front fence/bush.
I sat in the car trying to figure out were they were coming from but they appeared not to be from my back garden..although they may have done a detour first.
I had a swarm from the garden hive on Monday which were captured and removed to a different area, so would 3 days be too soon for a cast swarm..?
Anyway... enticed them towards a 5 frame nuc box with a couple of old frames in it and after knocking some more of the swarm onto my trailer where the nuc sat, I noticed a bunch of bees....Got magnifying glass and found a very small queen which I got in a clip...I put her in the nuc and slowly the other bees left the fence and gathered on the nuc, but they didnt want to go in.... just sat there....
At about 4 o'clock they decided that they really didnt like the box at all and after a few circuits they flew off..I managed to follow them to the main road where they were interested in 3 small trees, but none of them were settling..just flying over quite a big area.
I walked home to check and there wasnt a sign of any bees at all...well, not for 20 mins or so and a few started to drift back and then some more etc etc..I went back to where I had seen them and noticed a lot of dead bees on the road which had either stopped for a rest of been hit by cars... Worse was that there was a group of about 30 or so squashed bees and I assume that the queen was also there.
Other bees have been flying around all over looking for the queen and settling on the nuc but not sure how many have gone in....I managed to scrape up some of the squashed bees from the road and put them in the nuc hoping there might be some queen pheromone there.
I doubt there are enough bees to do anything with as there are lots dead or looking lost, so I will just move the box to the garden and see what they do.
I sat in the car trying to figure out were they were coming from but they appeared not to be from my back garden..although they may have done a detour first.
I had a swarm from the garden hive on Monday which were captured and removed to a different area, so would 3 days be too soon for a cast swarm..?
Anyway... enticed them towards a 5 frame nuc box with a couple of old frames in it and after knocking some more of the swarm onto my trailer where the nuc sat, I noticed a bunch of bees....Got magnifying glass and found a very small queen which I got in a clip...I put her in the nuc and slowly the other bees left the fence and gathered on the nuc, but they didnt want to go in.... just sat there....
At about 4 o'clock they decided that they really didnt like the box at all and after a few circuits they flew off..I managed to follow them to the main road where they were interested in 3 small trees, but none of them were settling..just flying over quite a big area.
I walked home to check and there wasnt a sign of any bees at all...well, not for 20 mins or so and a few started to drift back and then some more etc etc..I went back to where I had seen them and noticed a lot of dead bees on the road which had either stopped for a rest of been hit by cars... Worse was that there was a group of about 30 or so squashed bees and I assume that the queen was also there.
Other bees have been flying around all over looking for the queen and settling on the nuc but not sure how many have gone in....I managed to scrape up some of the squashed bees from the road and put them in the nuc hoping there might be some queen pheromone there.
I doubt there are enough bees to do anything with as there are lots dead or looking lost, so I will just move the box to the garden and see what they do.
