Strange day !

[coffin dodger]

Hi All,
Around 10.30 this morning my beekeeping neighbour and mentor came to get me shouting SWARM ! SWARM ! I popped next door, all of 10 yards to see the air alive with bees, I went home, grabbed my suit, nuc, etc and went back to see where they were going, we watched the bees exploring high up in a mature Ash tree, then they came down into my garden and seemed too settle on a small plum tree, just as we were about to go into swarm collection mode, they all took off again and returned to the original hive covering the front, within 20 minutes they were all back inside just as if nothing had happened, I presume that we've just seen a supersedure in progress, at least we didn't have to get the ladders out.

This afternoon I was out inspecting my own hives, plenty of brood and the supers starting to fill nicely in both hives, but in the brood box of No2 hive is one large queen cell, as I'm looking at it the bees are pulling it apart and dragging the larvae out, Looks like they're happy where they are and don't want to go yet, shame really as I've a couple of nucs ready for something like that.

It just goes to prove that bees never seem to do what you expect them to do.

Regards
CD

 

[itma]

I think this behaviour is likely to have been a mating flight of some sort.

I was told at the weekend that its only us garden beeks that ever see this happen ...
I've seen a couple.

 

[Davelin]

That roof sure ain't gonna blow off!!!

 

[lorrick]

Mine did the same two Sundays ago ? as I only had the colony and started bee keeping 4 weeks ago it was a bit of a worry, but they all came back home.

 

[yeogi75]

probably a prefab I've heard there is still some about (jammy ***ger)

 

[VEG]

the weight of those blocks on the roof is squeezing them out lol

 

[beeno]

Hi all,
Looks more like an aborted swarm attempt to me. Is your queen clipped? There must be loads of pros out there that has seen this a million times!

 

[coffin dodger]

In reply to a couple of posts, The concrete blocks look like concrete but seem to be made of something much lighter, they weigh less than a house brick, we had a lot kicking about and that seemed to be a good use for them.

The bees 'doing their thing' No, the queen hasn't been clipped, so it's a supersedure, mating flight, failed swarm, a mixture of all three or something completely different, whatever it was, it was quite impressive to see

Regards
CD

 

[Tom Bick]

I know a swarm always looks bigger than they actually are but how much room do they have in the hive?