Woo hoo we have lift off at last.

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Joined
Oct 29, 2013
Messages
428
Reaction score
264
Location
Romford
Hive Type
Commercial
Number of Hives
25
Well what a frustrating reintroduction to this hobby it has been this year. It started promisingly when a swarm decided to move into some of my mentors spare kit. The colony of lovely light coloured bees covered three frames and were flying well. So they were moved to my apiary and a week later I went along to transfer them from the nuc box into my bb. This was when I discovered that HM was absent and I had a bunch of very enthusiastic drone laying workers. :(

Still all was not lost as a swarm also landed on a bait hive I had in my back garden. These lovely very dark bees seemed very happy going about their business so I left them be for three weeks so HM could mate and settle down to work. So when I finally opened them up you can imagine my disappointment to find no queen, eggs or brood. :mad:

Fast forward to last night and I had great pleasure in moving a nice colony split from one of mentors as part of his swarm control efforts. With a nice fat, clipped and marked queen who is happily laying out to the edges of frames as fast as the girls can draw them. With bias and 5 frames of bees hopefully this is the foundation of my future stocks. :D
 
So you are back in the fray!
Sounds like three weeks wasn't long enough for HM in the second swarm, patience, may come right!
Look forward to future posts!
E
 
Well I left the second swarm where it was to see if there would be a recovery but the colony died out without a single egg being produced.
 
Well done so far,

this is my 1st year, having recieved a swarm cast at the end of last year,

now i'm on my 6th colony.
 
Well I went to my apiary yesterday evening with my mentor to see how my new colony was settling in. Bees covering 5 frames. 3 frames of bias and 2 full of stores. So we transferred them to my own kit and gave them 5 more frames of foundation and a super of foundation to play with. Hopefully I have plenty of time to get them built up nicely for winter.
 
Well I went to my apiary yesterday evening with my mentor to see how my new colony was settling in. Bees covering 5 frames. 3 frames of bias and 2 full of stores. So we transferred them to my own kit and gave them 5 more frames of foundation and a super of foundation to play with. Hopefully I have plenty of time to get them built up nicely for winter.

I would of held fire on the super until they had drawn out at least three more frames in the BB
 
So ten days on from last inspection and I went down to the apiary to see how things were progressing.

The girls have been busy drawing the foundation in the BB however they decided to pack all of it with stores leaving little room for brood. They have completely ignored the super of foundation above them :rolleyes:

I also found two loaded QC! :hairpull: both uncapped.

So I now had 3 1/2 frames with BIAS. 2 part drawn frames and 4 1/2 frames packed with stores. So after a quick call to my mentor a plan was hatched.

I removed the QC and then took out the two part drawn frames. I took two frames from the super and put them either side of the brood nest and will check back in 4 days. If they have made a start on drawing the super frames I shall move them up into the super and replace the brood frames. hopefully this will encourage bees up into the super.
 
I would of held fire on the super until they had drawn out at least three more frames in the BB

:iagree: I would have as well

You may also find a few more QC's so be vigilant when you go back in there If they're building up a head of steam they may make them from older larvae and swarm sooner so you won't have the usual seven days
 
I removed the QC and then took out the two part drawn frames. I took two frames from the super and put them either side of the brood nest and will check back in 4 days.

Just thought a bit more about this - so you are still not giving them any more space to lay? the part drawn brood frames indicate they are making an effort to create more brood space - there is/was three frames 'space' for them in the BB already (you are on commercial I believe?) but now that's gone yes, they may start to work on the shallow frames which you will, in four days take from them and they will have to start again.
 
Just thought a bit more about this - so you are still not giving them any more space to lay? the part drawn brood frames indicate they are making an effort to create more brood space - there is/was three frames 'space' for them in the BB already (you are on commercial I believe?) but now that's gone yes, they may start to work on the shallow frames which you will, in four days take from them and they will have to start again.

The train of thought was that they are drawing brood frames but filling them with stores as fast as they can. Even the part drawn frames were being filled. So if they can be encouraged to put stores into the super by moving a part drawn and filled frame up then the brood frames that are then drawn will be left for brood.

That's how I interpreted it anyway.
 
2 almost undrawn but every bit that was drawn was stuffed with stores. Even the cells only 1/4 drawn are stuffed.
 
Well today I went down to see how things had progressed and so far it seems to be going to plan. I had bias on 3 frames, 3 frames of stores, and 1 part drawn frame. The 2 super frames had been drawn and half filled with stores (no eggs) and these were moved up into the super. I then replaced these with the 2 part drawn deep frames I removed 4 days ago and 2 frames of foundation.

I placed the 2 full stores frames on the outer edge of the bb a d then the part full/drawn frames then the foundation and brood in the middle.

There were no charged queen cells, 1 cup and the 2 that I pulled down 4 days ago all clean but not repaired.

Didn't see hm but have eggs. So hopefully they start to put stores up in the super and leave the bb for brood.
 
Seven days on from my last inspection and I think I have a decision to make. In the bb I had bees covering 8 frames.

4 frames of bias.

3 full frames of stores.

2 half full of stores and 1 part drawn frame.

There were three qc on the face of the comb. Two empty in the brood nest and one on a frame of stores with a young larvae in.

So are they thinking of swarming or possibly superseding? Hm was hatched in june and has being laying well in whatever space they leave her.

I have the kit to perform an as with the aim to reunite before winter. Or should I leave them to it hoping its supesedure?
 
After having a think about things and also consulting with my mentor I made a decision and popped back today.

I took out the QC (still only one actually laid in).

I then looked through the stores frames and moved the sealed full frames to the outer edges of the BB and the part full frames inside them, this moved the brood to a more central position in the BB, up until now they had for some reason laid on one edge of the nest and filled everything on the other side with stores. I think that this may have been causing some of the problems as the foundation that they were drawing was the other side of the full frames of store so was being filled before HM could get to them to lay.

I then took the last undrawn frame and put this one next to the frames I replaced last time in the middle of the brood nest spreading the brood slightly. Hopefully this will allow HM to get to them before they are filled with stores.
 

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