Queen piping

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wilderness

House Bee
Joined
Dec 8, 2008
Messages
413
Reaction score
1
Location
South Oxfordshire
Hive Type
14x12
Number of Hives
4 + 1 nucs
Just walked past my hives on the way to feed the hens and in one of the hives the queen is piping. I guess they are about to swarm?

This colony only had 1 sealed queen cell left after an artificial swarm and was still sealed (and the only one) last Friday when the BI came.

Watch this space !!
 
I doubt they are about to swarm, I'd guess they already have and thats the new virgin queen looking for sisters. As for how long a queen pipes I don't know.

Busy Bee
 
Yesterday morning I opened the hive and found the queen by following the piping noise & I put her in a cage. She is probably a virgin so whilst I'd got her I marked her. See my other post about marking virgins.

Fairly sure it hasn't swarmed as this was the queenless half of an artificial swarm. Re-inspected all the frames, Oooops - found a QC hiding in a corner so I carefully cut it off. Put the hive back together.

I used the QC to make up another nuc and by the time I'd finished she was out!

All quiet in the hive yesterday - no piping.
 
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