Dear Paul,
My Golden Hive swarmed twice, first on 21st May while I was at the lovely bee
meeting at Jane's. Then again 4 days later on the 25th.
My nearest allotment bk wanted the swarms and being in good reachable locations
on apple trees, he collected them successfully and hived them in his rather
ramshackle empty hives. He is very happy and they have settled so far.
I have been reading my notes from last August and was reminded that I had left
two Golden hive frames behind the follow board. When can I open the Golden hive
to move those frames into use and make a minor inspection of a few of the end
frames? Knowing they are in the process of requeening, I am not sure if I
should wait a few weeks? The hive is very active, has 2 holes open and seems a
very strong colony.
Many thanks, Caragh
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On Sun, 22 May 2022 at 9:58, Oxnatbees<oxnatbees@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: Rich,
some similarities with this:
yesterday we inspected one of the hives at Jane's to determine if something was
wrong with it. It is a swarm from one of her hives which has been grumpy ever
since she hived it 14 days before. Every comb - about 9, not full size yet -
was being used for hone / nectar / pollen but there was a very noticeable
absence of brood. In other words, not queen-right. Maybe she disappeared on a
mating flight.
Previous to that, the hive it came from had tried to swarm several times but
gone back in to the hive. This is characteristic of a colony that is trying to
swarm, but the queen can't fly. They eventually swarmed after a few days, maybe
with a princess, who has now died. The colony should be savable by merging with
another swarm or colony, or possibly by giving it combs of brood from another
colony (though Gareth has previously said that needs to be repeated a few times
and just weakens the donor colony).
Generally speaking you are opening your hives more than I would, but I opened
mine a fair bit in my first 2 years and the upside was, it taught me a lot. And
as you have framed hives it is less disruptive than opening TBHs. But, you will
probably find their temper is more relaxed if you open them less.
I think most beekeepers don't remove ALL extra queen cells because there is a
reasonable chance (15%) that a given princess will not be successful on her
mating flight, so best to leave 1 or 2 spare heirs in the hive if you do decide
to remove or kill some.
If you catch a swarm which is just 3 tennis balls in size, that's too small to
be viable - very high risk of dying after a few months - merge it into another
colony, ideally the one it came from. Luckily your small one returned to the
hive.
Paul
On Sat, 21 May 2022 at 23:19, rich tetlow <rich.tet@xxxxxxx> wrote:
just wondering if anyone can suggest a reason for a recent behaviour of one of
my hives. i've already had one lot swarm out, missed the prime swarm then had 2
biggish casts, which i caught. a few days ago the next biggest hive issued a
swarm, i'd say about football size. they sat in a tree for about an hour, then
just as i was going to get them picked themselves up & disappeared into the
distance. so quite sprightly, & purposeful, given the last few have emerged &
then hung around for a day checking out my bait hives. to my shame, i don't
actually know if this was a prime swarm, or if i missed that & it was a very
big cast. i suspect the latter because i immediately looked through the hive,
finding about a dozen sealed queen cells, one in the act of hatching & another
with a hole in the side- ie they'd clearly been there for a bit, & one but not
all had been killed, presumably by another queen. although we didn't see any
hatched queen cells.anyway, i moved all the frames with queen cells on except
one, along with their bees, into a new brood box. not sure if this is standard
practice, but i've about had enough of casts this year & figured the foragers
would mostly go home, the young bees would stay & rear the princesses & other
brood, & the new colony wouldn't have anywhere near enough bees to swarm so the
princesses would have to sort it out amongst themselves.the new colony, next to
the first, has stayed very quiet, the old one carried on as before, then a few
days later they swarmed again. got a front seat view because i was working in
the greenhouse right next to them, it was only a little swarm- maybe 3 tennis
balls' worth- & they went & sat on a post about 20 yards away, on top of which
i then put a cardboard box. they immediately started walking up into it, so i
went away for half an hour, but when i came back the weight of bees had
dislodged the box & there was a lot of flying about again. i wedged it back a
bit more firmly, noticing in the process that they'd secreted a lot of wax
scales in their brief stay on the post, & tried again. when i got back this
time the box was empty, & my observation in the interim was, they'd all gone
back to the hive, with a lot trying to rejoin the new brood box initially, then
by the end of the day everyone back in the old hive.slightly reluctantly i
disturbed them again the next day, thinking maybe there was a queen or princess
we'd missed, & expecting the queen cell to be either hatched or torn down, but
no, we had a good thorough look this time & could find no queen, or princess, &
the cell still intact. we did, embarrassingly, find another one we'd missed
previously, which i moved across to the new box with the rest.so, this is the
second time this year i've had a swarm come out, sit for a bit then go back in.
first time i thought their queen had suffered some accident, but i thought that
was a bit tenuous then, & i refuse to believe its happened twice. i wonder if
they sometimes follow a princess out when shes off on a mating flight? it
occurs to me as well that princesses must surely do a bit of hanging around
outside before they go off or they'd be very hard put to find their way
back...anyway, seems like all i can do with this hive currently is leave it
alone. if they swarm they swarm, & if they don't have a laying queen in a month
or so i'll join them to the new colony, assuming one of their queens makes it.
but the trouble with being all hands off is, i don't know whats actually
happened & am basically guessing, which is why i wondered if anyone else could
shed any light?
