HM Honey
House Bee
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2013
- Messages
- 427
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Wakefield, Yorkshire
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 4
Been lovely here today so did full inspections on all my hives. All looking strong but one in particular was bubbling with bees, 9 frames of eggs & bias both sides and two frames full of stores.
Its got a super on that was fresh foundation a week ago that they have started to draw.
During the inspection today i noticed two play cup type cells that were charged with royal jelly. I don't think they were proper queen cells as they didn't appear to be being drawn long, had no larva or eggs and looked more like play cups, but at best, its probably a sign that they are thinking about swarming, so I am going to AS them.
I don't want to increase my colonies and have no drawn super foundation at the moment so my idea was to AS the old queen in to three supers of fresh foundation with a QE under the "brood area". The hope is that they will draw the new super foundation quickly.
I will then re-unite and keep the old queen (she's a 2013) and have three supers of drawn foundation.
My questions for the more experienced beeks are:
1) Has anyone done this before?
2) Is it likely to work?
3) When Re-uniting, will it be an issue that the queen is in the top box?
Cheers guys
Its got a super on that was fresh foundation a week ago that they have started to draw.
During the inspection today i noticed two play cup type cells that were charged with royal jelly. I don't think they were proper queen cells as they didn't appear to be being drawn long, had no larva or eggs and looked more like play cups, but at best, its probably a sign that they are thinking about swarming, so I am going to AS them.
I don't want to increase my colonies and have no drawn super foundation at the moment so my idea was to AS the old queen in to three supers of fresh foundation with a QE under the "brood area". The hope is that they will draw the new super foundation quickly.
I will then re-unite and keep the old queen (she's a 2013) and have three supers of drawn foundation.
My questions for the more experienced beeks are:
1) Has anyone done this before?
2) Is it likely to work?
3) When Re-uniting, will it be an issue that the queen is in the top box?
Cheers guys