What did you do in the Apiary today?

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SWHives said:
Right, removed the old queen to a nuc today and moved to new location. Left an almost finished/capped queen cell in the original hive. I assume I just need to wait now until the new queen gets mated and do weekly inspections. Thanks all for the advice.
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Stay out of there for 4 or 5 weeks
 
Busy day with the bees. The queen I removed last week as part of swarm control is laying nicely in her nuc. Removed about 20 qc’s from the parent colony. They were spread across both brood boxes. Left one with that colony and made up a mating nuc too. Added a second super to them as well as the first is full.
At the other site, one queen is not up to scratch so she is going to be replaced. They haven’t touched their super. The other colony is storming. They have drawn out a super in a week & because I put the qx on top of the super by accident the queen has laid that up as well as two brood boxes. Gave them another super.
Felt much more in control today and less of a bumbling panicking beginner!
 
I have setup the cell raiser, made a 3 frames nuc with a queen being superceded (not sure why, she is laying very well), finished to add supers on hives and setup bait hives around the apiary.
 
In-laws told me yesterday they had charged QCs but were worried about what to do. Unfortunately I was away on training so told them to knock down the QCs to buy some time and fortunately was able to drop in on the way home today, locate the queen (only took me a year off trying and I was getting worried I'd miss her again as she was on the penultimate frame!), mark her and Pagden them. Hopefully should do the trick and get them up to two colonies. Brother in law was there too, suited up and enjoyed it so hopefully another beekeeper in the making!
 
Had a weekly inspection. Apiary now consists of; Hive one which swarmed a week or so ago no new eggs, potentially a queen in process of being mated. Hive 2 which swarmed 2 days after Hive 1 is in exactly the same state. Marked Queen from one of the Hives in a 14x12 full Hive. 80% drawn out with super on. The 2nd swarm I originally thought was a second or third swarm as it was tiny, I placed in a 14x12 Nuc box, I looked through this and it has a marked queen in as well. So both Hives swarmed, caught both and re-hived. 3 Hives with Supers on, 1 Nuc drawing out frames. See if there's any change next Sunday.
 
Martimart said:
Had a weekly inspection. Apiary now consists of; Hive one which swarmed a week or so ago no new eggs, potentially a queen in process of being mated. Hive 2 which swarmed 2 days after Hive 1 is in exactly the same state. Marked Queen from one of the Hives in a 14x12 full Hive. 80% drawn out with super on. The 2nd swarm I originally thought was a second or third swarm as it was tiny, I placed in a 14x12 Nuc box, I looked through this and it has a marked queen in as well. So both Hives swarmed, caught both and re-hived. 3 Hives with Supers on, 1 Nuc drawing out frames. See if there's any change next Sunday.
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I would have to ask - why are they all swarming? Did you attempt any swarm prevention. You were lucky you seem to have caught the swarms. One has to remember that not all members of the public are fond of bees - they're OK the odd one buzzing in a flower but NOT swarms!!
 
Garry R said:
I would have to ask - why are they all swarming? Did you attempt any swarm prevention. You were lucky you seem to have caught the swarms. One has to remember that not all members of the public are fond of bees - they're OK the odd one buzzing in a flower but NOT swarms!!
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I checked fondant etc 23rd march. stores ok so took the fondant away. Inspected as the weather allowed and nothing to worry about, concerned about future space but all I had was frames of undrawn foundation. Decided to wait until the next inspection. Then the weather changed, went cold and wet with ground frosts until mid April, 13th of march was sunny. I planned to inspect that Friday, and they swarmed on that sunny day. At no point between the date they swarmed and my last inspection date of 23rd March would I have considered the weather suitable to open them up for a proper inspection.

What would you have done differently?
 
Martimart said:
I checked fondant etc 23rd march. stores ok so took the fondant away. Inspected as the weather allowed and nothing to worry about, concerned about future space but all I had was frames of undrawn foundation. Decided to wait until the next inspection. Then the weather changed, went cold and wet with ground frosts until mid April, 13th of march was sunny. I planned to inspect that Friday, and they swarmed on that sunny day. At no point between the date they swarmed and my last inspection date of 23rd March would I have considered the weather suitable to open them up for a proper inspection.

What would you have done differently?
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When you say inspected do you mean pulling out frames? Bees don't like being consistently disturbed and can abscond.
 
Bazzer said:
When you say inspected do you mean pulling out frames? Bees don't like being consistently disturbed and can abscond.
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The 23rd March inspection was looking at stores but pulled all frames out for a quick look at stores and room. It's now 11 / 12 days since the marked queens swarmed, I took down all but one QC in both Hives. I wanted to know if I have a queen or need to start and make a plan B.
 
Martimart said:
It's now 11 / 12 days since the marked queens swarmed, I took down all but one QC in both Hives. I wanted to know if I have a queen or need to start and make a plan B.
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long time before worrying about whether the new queen is a dud - good chance she hasn't even been out on a mating flight yet.
 
Martimart said:
The 23rd March inspection was looking at stores but pulled all frames out for a quick look at stores and room. It's now 11 / 12 days since the marked queens swarmed, I took down all but one QC in both Hives. I wanted to know if I have a queen or need to start and make a plan B.
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One source says the following (days are from emergence):

5-6 days to harden her outer shell and develop pheromones
1-11 days mating flights depending on weather and drone availability
2 days sperm storage
Total 8-19 days depending on weather

In reality, the usual advice is to wait 4 weeks from the estimated date of queen emergence before looking in the hive at all
 
Martimart said:
The 23rd March inspection was looking at stores but pulled all frames out for a quick look at stores and room. It's now 11 / 12 days since the marked queens swarmed, I took down all but one QC in both Hives. I wanted to know if I have a queen or need to start and make a plan B.
Click to expand...
Typically bees will swarm just after the first QC is capped - i.e D9 for the Q from egg. On d16 VQ emerges so that was 4-5 days ago. It takes a week or so for her to even be ready to fly and then she will only venture our in very good weather. Even with mini-nucs I would not inspect for at least 3 weeks after the Q emerged and would not be overly concerned until week 5. You are very unlikely to see a VQ in a hive - they move quickly and often hide. Much better to leave undisturbed.
 
Erichalfbee said:
The caveat is that many don’t.
Ive found more queens in the company of sealed QCs than not
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Certainly if the weather is poor, but you suspect there is trouble on the way, you can often intervene and find them together just before the barometric pressure starts rising again
 
Cool weather here at the moment. Daytime temperatures have been between 8-11c for the last week and it’s set to continue for a while yet. Not a lot of foraging going on so I fed 5 colonies light syrup yesterday to keep them going. Most of the local beekeepers have been informed to keep an eye on stores at the moment. Our association secretary told me she was still feeding syrup and pollen patties well into May last year. Even in the late Spring and Summer our temperatures here are usually 7-9c colder than most of central and southern Britain.
On a different note I have been given permission to use this excellent photo showing one of our Braula enjoying some fresh air ;) on a bee visiting willow.1CF06017-0921-43C2-BDDC-7F73BBC8E750.jpego
Taken on 29/3/22 in Orphir Orkney by Derek Mayes
 
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