Virgin Queens everywhere!

[crazy_bull]

Not sure if this ought to be in the 'How not to keep bees' section however it's in here!

I had 6 hives that i hadn't managed to get over to for about 3 weeks..... asking for trouble!

Anyway 6 hives = no queens present (all were clipped so no bees lost) over 80 yes 80 queen cells, 2 hives of which were hatching as i removed the frames!

So spent a fair while chasing virgins around the combs and even through the air! The little sods were hatching and flying off the combs straight away! I think i lost 4 somewhere in the apiary but now have over a dozen caged up and in the roof of the hives!

I would have probably caged some more but ran out of cages! Tomorrow will be spent stocking my mating nucs with bees as i hadn't planned to do any full scale breeding this year (too much else on).

See even so called 'experienced' beeks make cock ups! So beginers don't beat yourselves up over making errors!

Trouble is i only have 8 mating nucs so provided all the virgins survive until the end of the week i may have some spare virgin queens, does anyone want some? Thinking if you collect them you can have them, free, or perhaps a donation towards the forum (if thats ok Admin?). It is a bit hypothetical at the moment as i don't know if they'll all survive but if you're remotely interested just say so and i'll keep you posted.



C B

 

[Heather]

Oh I feel better already.

 

[Polyanwood]

Me too

 

[Roy S]

Its making me twitch just reading that!!!...was remarkably similar to what I went through when I went a bit wobbly a few weeks ago....had anything between 40-60 QC's in that one all emerging as I went through them.....good fun isnt it?

 

[SER]

Thank you crazy_bull that's made me feel better!

I had a couple of virgins emerge as I was inspecting on Sunday, being new to this I wasn't really sure what to do, I was given a few mini nucs for Christmas so thinking on my feet I caged one virgin and cut out and caged an unhatched QC.

Not having time to have the mini nucs queenless for any amount of time I stocked them and put the cages in. Placed in a cool, dark garage until last night when I opened the entrances outside.

This evening I opened them up to release the queens, both looked in fine health.

All in all things appeared to have worked out well considering I went about it all wrong and in a rush.

Only time will tell now.

Si.

 

[milkermel]

I have been looking for the 'we're smiley!!!' but we dont have one!! thanks Crazy bull for making us newbees not feel quite so hopeless!! Be prepared was what i was told last year!- bought 2nd box to later sort out a nuce, 1 day late checking and I think I now have 20 bees left in my parent hive and 2 nice new full brood boxes - Yep to had to scrounge a spare brood from my teacher!!!

good to know that its not only us that make the mistakes!

 

[Somerford]

Believe me it happens - and there is no correlation between 1 hive or 50+. Sometimes it's just the way of the bees, but the experienced beek will have a few extras to hand to deal with it , in CB's case a few handy queen cages !

I had a similar issue this week (see thread in Queen breeding) on one hive. Is it the season or just the bee strain, who knows ?!

Thing is, CB has been able to make a good thing out of a bad thing - 8 potential new queens for increase/replacement. Great stuff !!

regards

S

 

[MrB]

spent a fair while chasing virgins around

Those were the days!

 

[crazy_bull]

good to know that its not only us that make the mistakes!

Oh believe me mistakes just happen wether your a beginer or been keeping bee's for 50 yrs its how you deal with them and learning how to avoid them that should get easier with time.

Like putting copious ammounts of newspaper down around the extractor because you know that at some point you will forget you left the honey tap open when the phone rings or you get distracted by a visitor.

Yes that happened this week as well very messy!

 

[crazy_bull]

Those were the days!

 

[margob99]

I don't feel like the only one then. What does make me feel bad is that I destroyed all the surplus virgin queens. It haunts me

 

[crazy_bull]

Thanks guys n gals am now sorted had a few go tonight and a few others have asked for any spares which i'll know more over the weekend.

Regards

C B