Hi all, wondering if anyone would care to speculate/ offer any advice on a colony that’s gone very off script this season. Through Spring I saw all kinds of unexpected behaviour making me confused about queenrightness and swarming intention - brood and queen cells above the excluder, random periods of very aggressive temperament, sealed swarm cells but apparently no swarm... Anyway I finally thought they were sorting themselves out but am scratching my head again today. I'd be really grateful if anyone would care to speculate about what's going on here:
1) New queen emerged about 4 weeks ago (saw a queen just sitting on the ground outside the hive, she was on the small side and that's quite strange behaviour, but I was so relieved to see evidence of a queen at all that I didn't want to look the gift horse in the mouth, and I assumed she was just having a rest either before or after a mating flight)
2) Sent out a small swarm exactly 3 weeks ago yesterday
3) Eleven days ago there was no sign the new queen was laying yet
4) Yesterday, there was capped brood but no open brood, and a ton of both open and sealed queen cells (maybe about 20?)
5) Today I checked again pretty thoroughly using a torch, and can see no sign of eggs anywhere, just some patches of already sealed brood.
The QCs are mostly along the bottom of frames, with a couple on the middle of frames. There are quite a lot of stores in the brood and a half they are on, but definitely room to lay... Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what's gone on? Did I have a new queen emerge, mate, start laying, then immediately die??
Didn't want this thread to get too long, but if there's other details that would help just ask me anything!
1) New queen emerged about 4 weeks ago (saw a queen just sitting on the ground outside the hive, she was on the small side and that's quite strange behaviour, but I was so relieved to see evidence of a queen at all that I didn't want to look the gift horse in the mouth, and I assumed she was just having a rest either before or after a mating flight)
2) Sent out a small swarm exactly 3 weeks ago yesterday
3) Eleven days ago there was no sign the new queen was laying yet
4) Yesterday, there was capped brood but no open brood, and a ton of both open and sealed queen cells (maybe about 20?)
5) Today I checked again pretty thoroughly using a torch, and can see no sign of eggs anywhere, just some patches of already sealed brood.
The QCs are mostly along the bottom of frames, with a couple on the middle of frames. There are quite a lot of stores in the brood and a half they are on, but definitely room to lay... Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what's gone on? Did I have a new queen emerge, mate, start laying, then immediately die??
Didn't want this thread to get too long, but if there's other details that would help just ask me anything!
