Swarm into a mini nuc??

[crazy_bull]

Went to the Keilers tonight and one had a good clump of bees out side it which i thought was strange as they were onlyt made up 10 days ago and 3 days ago there was still just a cup full of bee's inside.

So i opened it up and it was ram packed with bee's, absolutley solid including the feeder.

My only guess is a small swarm has decided to take up residence, anyone else found this?


Or now that the queens have mated she has attracted more bee's in?

Either way there is easily enough bee's to start up a 5 frame nuc!


C B

 

[bobandbec]

I had a swarm come out of a hive a couple of weeks back while I was at the apiary.

They seemed to fly a little aimlessly before landing spread out on a nearby hedge where I have several apideas situated. A whole bunch of them then decided that one of the apideas was home and I saw them descend on the mini nuc. They signalled others and before I knew it the whole apidea was engulfed. At the same time the majority of the swarm must have found their own queen and the usual swarm formed on one of the branches in the hedge. I took this into a box and saw the queen enter.
I left the mini nuc as it was and the next morning it was empty, presumably absconding, with what I thought was a virgin queen.

Peter

 

[andypigeon]

thing is with no room they will leave again i had it with a 5 frame 14x12 nuc left them in it over night went to swap them into the hive and as i lifted the cover board they all flew up. got them back put them into a 14x12 hive within a week they had 10 frames of brood and a super of brood, yet it didnt luck very big when i picked it up.

 

[keith pierce]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad new , but this happened to me last yaer when a large swarm decended on 8 apideas and nucs. lost all the queens in the boxes that were affected.
the queens must of been out on a mating flight with the workers fanning them home and fanned in the swarm instead..the secret is not to but any of your mating nucs or apideas in front of the hives that might swarm but to the rear or well out to the side

 

[Haughton Honey]

Crikey bobs......great photos (and a lovely looking apiary to boot)

 

[Norm]

I recently blogged about this, I have had swarms take up residence in some home made mini's.

The two home made mating hives I mentioned earlier are being put to use as mini bait hives to possibly bait a cast. I know that some people say that the size of a swarm doesn't influence their preference for a certain hive volume but I have had a cast in one of these before. Furthermore I have heard of casts setting up house in upturned flower pots before so I think, as I have them hanging around, I may as well utilize them. Both hives were prepared in the same way.

I put one wider top bar in with an old piece of brood comb waxed onto it. The other six bars have section starter strips and I have set screws on each side of the top bars to give a comb spacing of 32mm. The screws are also utilized with a wrap around wire to act as a hinge between two adjacent bars. I have opened a pair out on this first photo to show that when two adjacent bars are wired together, in order that if they bait a cast, the bars can be lifted out, opened out and easily wired together on the non hinge side. The two top bars opened out are exactly the length of one warre top bar. Therefore the cast can be transferred directly into warre box as 3 full size top bars and allowed to expand naturally without much disturbance.