No, they were a few weeks apart, no handling just insertion into a plunger cage for one and crown of thorns cage for the other. The first one was an artificial swarm on a hive that was building up quite slowly but one that I'd only left 7 frames in (it was a September artificial swarm last year after I was forced into feeding early due to a shortage of large feeders after being pissed about by an equipment supplier and with an impending holiday)
The bees are a delight to handle, maybe the first bees I'd feel confident about handling without any gloves. Very calm on the comb and I really wish they had built up better.
I moved the brood and QC's into a nuc, marked the queen, left her on the roof of a nearby hive while the paint dried and then a couple of mins later let her out onto a drawn frame with a small patch of brood. She wasn't running and the workers appeared to accept her ok. I closed up and went into the workshop to make up a few frames. Went back into the original hive and she was nowhere in sight, so she was marked for all of 15 mins. In that time I reckon the queen was balled and carried away. She wasn't out the front of the hive and nowhere inside. No eggs a week later, no queen cells either. Just like the workers said sod it, we wanted to swarm, but you took our brood away and now we want to destroy this colony just to spite you!
