What have you learnt this year?

[Rob55]

Bees from a swarm build up fast!!

 

[itma]

The bees know what they are doing ...

Err, not all the time, for sure.
The small cast swarm that I picked up last week have essentially zero chance of getting their Q mated. The parent colony would also be doomed, and I don't think much of the chances of the prime swarm that must have gone off just a few days before. They would need a VERY long Ivy season to build a new set of comb and fill it with 40 pounds of stores - starting from zero now.
All doomed because they did something that had no hope of working.

 

[pargyle]

Err, not all the time, for sure.
The small cast swarm that I picked up last week have essentially zero chance of getting their Q mated. The parent colony would also be doomed, and I don't think much of the chances of the prime swarm that must have gone off just a few days before. They would need a VERY long Ivy season to build a new set of comb and fill it with 40 pounds of stores - starting from zero now.
All doomed because they did something that had no hope of working.

Of course ... there's always the exception ! Perhaps I should have said 'usually know what they are doing'.

There is little logic to a swarm ... and more so a cast swarm ... at this time of the year. The real question is 'what provoked them into swarming ?'. Did you know the colony they came from ? It surely wasn't one of yours ?

I've read that too much feeding can cause a colony to swarm this late in the year when they are confused by the glut of stores coming in. Which brings me back to one of the other things I've learnt ...

 

[Nige.Coll]

Vibration

yeah i guessed that

 

[Stiffy]

We all manage to learn something new in beekeeping each year, whether it is to zip up your bee suit properly, or a new better method for queen rearing.
How about sharing some of your new found wisdom with everyone so we can all be better beekeepers next year.

I will start off with, never place queen mating nucs too close together as the bees seem to merge themselves together into one nuc.

Not to try and have a reasoned discussion with some of the members on this forum is the major thing I have learnt this year and to keep my gob shut......not sure the last will carry over into next year.
S

 

[Floyd]

When you think to yourself "I won't need to light the Smoker"

Light it!

 

[itma]

...
There is little logic to a swarm ... and more so a cast swarm ... at this time of the year. The real question is 'what provoked them into swarming ?'. Did you know the colony they came from ? It surely wasn't one of yours ?
...

I know that I picked it up more than 5 miles from my apiary, and that swarms typically go less than 50 yards before regrouping, and then about half a mile to a new home - far enough away from the daughter and her new brood.

 

[Rob55]

When you think to yourself "I won't need to light the Smoker"

Light it!

Haha too true! Had to belt it back to my shed a couple of times this year!

 

[pargyle]

I know that I picked it up more than 5 miles from my apiary, and that swarms typically go less than 50 yards before regrouping, and then about half a mile to a new home - far enough away from the daughter and her new brood.

So ... likelihood is that it was someone else's.

We've had a swarm detailed on here today ... looked like it was provoked by a rather zealous varroa treatment with little or no ventilation. Something set your swarm off on a hunt for a new home ... but we'll never know what, pity !

 

[Walrus]

There is little logic to a swarm ... and more so a cast swarm ... at this time of the year. The real question is 'what provoked them into swarming ?'.

Swarming = bees reproduction. Some have a bigger urge to do it than others. Some do it no matter what. They will die if they get it wrong, but bees as a whole go on.

Sometimes a queenless colony with no eggs/larvae kills a nice mated queen that is introduced, thus condemning them to death.

Sometimes bees let a drone laying queen go on, rather than replace her (before she goes fully DLQ, obviously)

There will be a cause for these effects, but the effect is not always for the best.

 

[pargyle]

Swarming = bees reproduction. Some have a bigger urge to do it than others. Some do it no matter what. They will die if they get it wrong, but bees as a whole go on.

Sometimes a queenless colony with no eggs/larvae kills a nice mated queen that is introduced, thus condemning them to death.

Sometimes bees let a drone laying queen go on, rather than replace her (before she goes fully DLQ, obviously)

There will be a cause for these effects, but the effect is not always for the best.

Yep ... sometimes the reason is obvious and sometimes you just wonder what one earth were they thinking of ... lot still to understand about bees !

 

[starflex]

Beekeeping is a craft of big words. This year I am mainly learning to spell hypopharyngeal. Next year I might go in for hydroxymethylfurfuraldehyde, or I might just stick with HMF!