Swarms & Supercedure

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Haughton Honey

Drone Bee
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Location
South Cheshire
Hive Type
Commercial
Number of Hives
Lots of Commercial hives.......
Of the 14 mongrel/dark bee swarms that I have 'rescued' this season 4 off them were casts (all with mated Queens now) - 10 of them were prime swarms and had laying Queens who all pretty much came back in to lay within a couple of days of being re-hived.

Having inspected over half of the colonies today it appears that out of the 10 prime swarms....8.....yes 8....appear to be in the process of supercedure, with all colonies having eggs, larva and capped brood present and most with the soon-to-be de-throned Queen present and seen.

In contrast, my Buckfast and Buckfast X Queens are showing no signs of either swarming or supercedure.

Weird huh.
 
Quite common for a prime swarm queen to come back into lay,lay up a frame of eggs and then get superceded.
 
Quite common for a prime swarm queen to come back into lay,lay up a frame of eggs and then get superceded.

Not sure if it's common within the past few years/now or has always been common Admin?

I think that the percentage is very much on the high side.
 
Been quite common for as long as i can remember.........now when was that,...yesterday...hour ago.
Yes it's quite common.
 
Nothing weird about supercedure in a prime swarm, she left the original hive due to either a reducing level of queen substance or the colony had run out of space. She leaves with the prime swarm, lays for a few weeks until the colony is sustainable, if reduced queen substance was the cause of the swarm then some eggs are turned into queen cells, the queen is replaced and a good proportion of her genes are passed on.
 
Nothing weird about supercedure in a prime swarm, she left the original hive due to either a reducing level of queen substance or the colony had run out of space. She leaves with the prime swarm, lays for a few weeks until the colony is sustainable, if reduced queen substance was the cause of the swarm then some eggs are turned into queen cells, the queen is replaced and a good proportion of her genes are passed on.

I understand that, although am intrigued by the high percentage this year. Of the 6 prime swarms taken last year 1 was superceded.
 
Are the swarms from a wide area WPC ?

From Wigan outside of Manchester down to Market Drayton on the Staffordshire/North Shropshire border...so yes, quite a wide area. All dark/feral/native/AMM-lookalike types too funnily enough. Two colonies are almost black and draw the whitest wax I've ever seen.
 
Maybe a case of the colony effectively recognising the effects of the cold winter causing a low varroa count, the (until now) good summer weather and the availability of large numbers of fertile drones that will ensure the replacement queen gets mated. But bees apparently can't predict the weather a few weeks ahead...
 
bees apparently can't predict the weather a few weeks ahead...

Are BBC/Goverment controling our bees ?
Its just that the BBC/Met office cant predict the weather a few weeks ahead either.

Brosville,get over here quick,and bring lots of tinfoil..................
 

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