Swarm

[Nick W]

I am going away Saturday for 2 weeks and was going to check on them Friday, weather permitting.

Would you advise against this in light of the above?

 

[Moggs]

Nick

Surely you have somebody who can stand in for you for the two weeks? This is the time of year when bees are likely to need regular inspections. I'm looking at mine on a weekly frequency at least now as things are changing so rapidly. Did your training course and study provide you with enough information on swarm prevention? From your earlier notes, I would suggest that your bees will be in a very different state in two weeks time. If you want to PM me with your location, I'll put some bait hives out

 

[Chris B]

Nick,
you'll be fine checking Friday. Make sure there is still only one queen cell in each (and they might be sealed by then). They won't swarm again if that's the case and no problem leaving for 2 weeks now. The silver lining to losing a swarm so early is that once your new queens mate you can relax a bit as swarming is almost certainly not going to happen again this season.

 

[drstitson]

moggs - if you read the OP you'll see they've already swarmed. so as he knows he has queen cells (perhaps checking there is only one) he needs to leave them alone for queen to mate and start laying and therefore is ok to go away.

wouldn't be same case if packed hive with cells that hadn't swarmed.