I've been checking my hive regularly to feed them recently. They're in a National, and this year were in a double brood box, with QE and a super. The super was where I had been feeding. They had been doing well I thought, apart from not having much in the way of stores - hence the feeding. They've been a bit aggressive for the last year and tend to follow. I'd gone for the DBB because each year I seem to get at least one big swarm disappearing (despite AS and other swarm management manoeuvres, and never seem to have a big enough colony by the end of the season to take honey.
As the warm weather had arrived, I thought I'd do a full inspection. I hadn't seen the queen since she started laying in September last year, but hadn't worried as there had always been staggered brood and/or eggs (except for the really cold spell in April).
They were aggressive as usual, but I went through both BBs. Top one had scattered brood at all stages, some eggs, in 5 frames (a lot of drones in one of the outer frames), some nectar and a little pollen. There were a handful of small cups, and one Queen cell with royal jelly in it - not capped and at the bottom of a frame.
The bottom BB had one full frame of good capped brood (both sides) and a few with honey and a bit more pollen.
I didn't find the queen, but had been as careful as possible not to let her drop anywhere.
Given the weather and forecast, I took away the remaining feed and filled the super with more empty foundation in frames, and closed up.
I kept my suit on for a while to wait for the followers to give up, and carried on doing some garden tidying around the hive area. After a few minutes, I was aware of the noise around my head getting louder. I ignored it at first, and then realised it was quietening down. As I looked around, I just saw a smallish (compared to the one I saw leave my hive last year) disappearing out of the garden at a rate of knots.
I was really hoping to build up a bigger colony this year to finally have some honey, but once again I seem to have been thwarted. What is most disappointing is that this time I feel it was possibly my own intervention that triggered the swarm. Any (polite) suggestions as to what I could have done differently
Thanks
As the warm weather had arrived, I thought I'd do a full inspection. I hadn't seen the queen since she started laying in September last year, but hadn't worried as there had always been staggered brood and/or eggs (except for the really cold spell in April).
They were aggressive as usual, but I went through both BBs. Top one had scattered brood at all stages, some eggs, in 5 frames (a lot of drones in one of the outer frames), some nectar and a little pollen. There were a handful of small cups, and one Queen cell with royal jelly in it - not capped and at the bottom of a frame.
The bottom BB had one full frame of good capped brood (both sides) and a few with honey and a bit more pollen.
I didn't find the queen, but had been as careful as possible not to let her drop anywhere.
Given the weather and forecast, I took away the remaining feed and filled the super with more empty foundation in frames, and closed up.
I kept my suit on for a while to wait for the followers to give up, and carried on doing some garden tidying around the hive area. After a few minutes, I was aware of the noise around my head getting louder. I ignored it at first, and then realised it was quietening down. As I looked around, I just saw a smallish (compared to the one I saw leave my hive last year) disappearing out of the garden at a rate of knots.
I was really hoping to build up a bigger colony this year to finally have some honey, but once again I seem to have been thwarted. What is most disappointing is that this time I feel it was possibly my own intervention that triggered the swarm. Any (polite) suggestions as to what I could have done differently
Thanks
