The Beauty Of Clipped Queens

[Millet]

On arriving at my little Apiary spot today at around 1.30pm i was greeted with a very large amount of bees in the sky around two suspect hives, the tell tail sign that the little devils where swarming.
I left them too it and went into the cottage and made a cup of tea, i then had a walk around the garden with my lady friend to see how the flower beds and pond life where doing, which give the bees around about 30 mins to reorganize there strategy.
This was the out come, all the bees flew back to the hive and before i got my camera the full hive was black/brown and covered with bees.
When i did eventually go to sort them out i spotted Queenie just under the landing strip with around twenty bees trying to cover her, she was trying to climb up a nettle to get back in the hive which she achieved eventually.
I could have splatted her there and then but i will let the bees decide what to do but i think the Virgin Queen will kill her, we will see ? .
I have lost no flying bees in the process so it is the way forward for me.
My three nucs seem to be doing ok also and i have the most honey i have ever had..

Last picture Queen 3in from the left crawling back in.

P.s got the pictures Muddled but there you go..

 

[pargyle]

Lost no flying bees YET ! Perhaps you should have noticed some queen cells ? And done an A/S ?

You really need to sort the situation out as you could see a virgin killing the old queen and then swarming ... and you might have lots of swarm queen cells in there ... all getting ready to go ..

Leaving them to sort themselves out is not really good beekeeping.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Lost no flying bees YET ! Perhaps you should have noticed some queen cells ? And done an A/S ?

You really need to sort the situation out

Leaving them to sort themselves out is not really good beekeeping.

They will try again, lose the queen, go back into the hive and swarm properly with the first virgin that emerges.
The whole point of clipping a queen is so that you can go in after the initial 'swarm' and reduce the QC's to one.
In this particular case it would have been wise to go in and A/S the colony.

 

[Millet]

Lost no flying bees YET ! Perhaps you should have noticed some queen cells ? And done an A/S ?

You really need to sort the situation out as you could see a virgin killing the old queen and then swarming ... and you might have lots of swarm queen cells in there ... all getting ready to go ..

Leaving them to sort themselves out is not really good beekeeping.

Hey chill out Fatty.. it is all under control .. .

For some strange reason i did notice a few funny shaped brood cell's , so i went onto youtube and spent around 18hrs into the early hours viewing American videos, so i now know what American Queen cells look like, do our Queen cells look the same as American ones..

 

[Millet]

They will try again, lose the queen, go back into the hive and swarm properly with the first virgin that emerges.
The whole point of clipping a queen is so that you can go in after the initial 'swarm' and reduce the QC's to one.
In this particular case it would have been wise to go in and A/S the colony.

Some may have missed my point or i may not have explained in detail , however we have a situation where one hive has one clipped Queen.
The hive also has only one and i will say again one Queen cell ONLY One.
I knock any new cells down regularly, unless the virgin does not kill the old Queen i may get a Swarm but if it is the old Queen again (bingo) , i have done exactly the same on one other hive and it has worked a treat..

 

[pargyle]

Hey chill out Fatty.. it is all under control .. .

Good .. your bees, your methods .. we can only offer what we consider to be helpful advice to relatively inexperienced beekeepers who clearly know best ...

 

[Millet]

Good .. your bees, your methods .. we can only offer what we consider to be helpful advice to relatively inexperienced beekeepers who clearly know best ...

Hell ye and Thank you..
Steve.