CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
My neighbor had three clumps of bees on his property yesterday, so he caught them in two separate boxes. Today I'm going over to help him determine how many colonies he actually caught...
Beekeeping
- Thread starter LittleBittyBigJohn
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ponytug
Super Member
That's pretty funny!My neighbor had three clumps of bees on his property yesterday, so he caught them in two separate boxes. Today I'm going over to help him determine how many colonies he actually caught...
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
Watched a swarm move into a swarm box today. Really fun to see. That makes swarm #4. Had three buddies catch them this week too!
ponytug
Super Member
Great year for bees, which has to be great news.
All the best, Peter
All the best, Peter
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
I'm usually pretty successful with swarms. I'll have plenty of honey for me and maybe 120 pounds to sell
Do you have a sense of how many of your hives swarm in a given spring? I assume you just move a follower board to give them room to grow, but otherwise don't take any prevention measures?
My (previously) strongest hive still doesn't show signs of a queen. The existing bees aren't backfilling the lower box of the brood nest and appear to be polishing cells, so I'm hoping there's a virgin queen soon to be laying. It's been several weeks since there's been any brood.
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
Every colony is different... But maybe 50% swarm. I don't try to prevent it, as swarming has numerous health benefits for a colony. Even if my bees have ample room, they will still swarm, it's rarely a lack of physical space.
After several weeks with no brood, the queen may very well be a late bloomer... The threat is a laying worker becoming active. Keep us posted.
I am two weeks post queen emergence in two of my hives, and I have 6 day old larvae already... The weather has also not been the best for mating flights... So at three weeks I'd be getting a little nervous.
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
Got a call today from a local couple that need bees removed from inside a tree. So… I’ll be building some gear to perform a trap out. Never done one before, so this may be an adventure.
Torvy
Super Member
The boss bought another hive. Her 'plan' is to use it to move some of the existing bees if they produce a new queen. I guess it's like a controlled swarm, but I dont pretend to understand.
CloverKnollFarms
Super Member
Yeah, that would be like a split. I’ll do those if I have a really strong colony with multiple queen cells. I’ll take a frame with a queen cell, and a couple other frames of brood, and place them in another box to start a new colony. It’s quite reliable.
Yeah, given the time that's gone by I was concerned about laying worker and if there wasn't a virgin queen, they were SOL.
Gave them a frame with some eggs+larvae from the swarm of theirs I caught. Checked today and they had built 6 or so emergency cells so was pretty sure there's no virgin queen. Grabbed a mated queen from the bee store today and introduced her, we'll see how it goes.
Bees definitely do get grumpy when they don't have a queen. Ornery little buggers today!
