They've started!!

[EmsE]

I began working through my hive on Wednesday with my 8 year old daughter, telling her we didn't need to worry about queen cells just yet. I'm working on a double brood box and felt happy that my queen had lots of space, however there on the 4th frame in the top box was a Queen cell occupied by a large larva! Previous inspection was 6 days before (I've been trying to find and mark my queen- with no luck!:o).

I was hoping to raise another colony this year but I thought I had more time to prepare. Thankfully 2 experienced bee-keepers came to my rescue, found my elusive queen (so she is finally marked) and arranged the hive for it to be split.

Fingers crossed everything is going to work out- my first (assisted) attempt at raising a new queen. There are plenty of drones in my hive so I'm hoping there are others in the local area....and that the weather gets warmer!

[Stromnessbees]

Hi EmsE

- just one queen cell? I would say they are preparing for supercedure rather than swarming. One of my colonies is doing the same and I am not going to disturb them except for clipping the queen's wing, just in case.

Good luck with it anyway, Doris

[Jimbo]

Hi EmsE,

I would agree with Doris one queen cell is usually supercedure. Another clue is a supercedure queen cell is usally found on the frame either in the middle or top sides etc. where as swarm queen cells are usually found hanging near or on the bottom of the frames. I would find who are the nearest beekeepers to you and ask if they have a lot of drones hatched in their hives. Renfrewshire in not that far from me (West Coast) and on inspection of 10 hives so far this week only 3 have hatched drones and only with 1 or 2 in each hive. There is the usual amount of capped drone cells. From my records this year the colonies are about 1 -2 weeks behind where they have been in the last few years but with the recent warm spell we are having they are catching up. Good luck and let us know if your new queen gets mated.

Jimbo

[EmsE]

Hi Doris & Jimbo,

The bee keepers who helped also think it is likely to be supercedure, however when we checked through the hive, we weren't certain the other queen cups were empty as the light wasn't good (the eggs I thought I saw were probably wishful thinking). I felt it would be best to seperate the hives because if it wasn't supercedure then I'd lose a lot of bees and could annoy a lot of locals, but if it was supercedure and the queen doesn't mate properly with it been so early, then that wouldn't be good either.

I've been told that if the bees with the old queen try and raise more queen cells in the next few weeks then it definitely was supercedure, which brings me back to the question....'but what if she doesn't mate properly?'

What is the best way to deal with supercedure?
1) leave the bees to it or
2) separate then reunite when satisfied with the new queen?
Does the pondering get any easier with experience?

From what I've heard, I've probably got most of the drones in the area which isn't ideal.

My queen is one that was raised last year and although there is a lot of concern about how good they are due to the wet weather last year she seems to be really good and wonder what it is that the bees aren't happy with. (more pondering time on that one as well).

I'll let you know how it goes.

EmsE

[EmsE]

Well I couldn't resist- I had to see what was happening in both hives. The one with my Queen cell (now sealed) had a few other queen cells in. I removed a few of them but have kept a couple (on a different frame to the sealed cell frame) to see if it can be put into a nearby hive where the queen seems to have disappeared (although the bees themselves are very happy:confused:). I also managed to reduce it down to 1 brood box.

The original hive, now 1 brood box, was packed with bees but with plenty of space for the queen to lay, and a few new queen cells have appeared again! The bees have been working well on the foundation (5 of the frames). I've put the super on (all foundation) to see if they will draw it out as well.

I got this colony as a 5 frame nucleus in July last year and it built up very quickly. In August (when I carried out my first inspection with my daughter on our own) we discovered lots of queen cells, 1 of which was sealed. I destroyed all of the Queen cells, hoping it was the right thing to do, and when my mentor had a look he removed a few I had missed. We put this down to the hive been overcrowded and provided another brood box as they weren't entertaining the idea of drawing out the foundation in the super I put on for them (.....and am still trying to get them to). The rest of the year went quite smoothly after that until now.

My next step is???

[Adam]

You might just have a swarmy colony. Does the pondering get any easier? It should do. Especially if you keep just a couple of hives.

For your hive with the sealed queen cell, provided there are no more eggs in the hive, then emergency cells won't count for anything (you sometimes find just a small dead bee inside). Your queen will probably mate fine (most do).

If you have done an artificial swarm, sometimes the swarm urge doesn't go away. If you have 5 drawn frames, you don't need a super. I would cut out the queen cells in the first instance.

[Neils]

Esme, there's people here with much more experience than me giving advice so I wont, I would just like to say that I love that you're involving your daughter, get them while theyre young :) have you considered what style of white beard she should have yet :D

[EmsE]

My Daughter's not happy when she knows that I've been to see the bees without her (most Wednesdays when she's at school). Her imagination is great, particularly about the fact that the queen should still have a crown as she's sure they make them small enough:cool:

Well this weekend has been quite an adventure with a steep learning curve. On Sunday we had our local association apiary visit in the afternoon which was really interesting. We saw the queen in one of the hives being marked and wing clipped by a bare handed bee keeper!

I had decided during the week that I would take my new queen, hopefully hatched to my friends where she has had a feral colony in the eaves of her house for over 25 years. The reasons for this were to boost the genetic mix in my new colony and also because the original hive is at it again so I felt it would be no good having 2 sister queens in the apiary who have had the mating flights in the same location.

So, on Sunday evening we strapped the hive up securely and closed the entrance with parcel tape. Into the boot of the car it went and my daughter and I merrily drove down the road, avoiding all the potholes we could......then there were bees on my rear windscreen. I was convinced that I had a boot full of free bees and every time we stopped at a red light (which I'm sure was every one) I worried about them coming up the car. My daughter remained very calm saying 'don't worry mum, we can always get out if they try and sting us;)
Anyway, we finally got to our destination to find only a handful had managed to get out and they were just concerned about getting back into the hive.

The best part of the night though was hearing my new queen piping, what a lovely sound she makes and it was certainly worth all the pondering beforehand and the dramatics of the evening. (trying to forget I've to move the bees back in 4 weeks time).

[EmsE]

Esme, there's people here with much more experience than me giving advice so I wont, I would just like to say that I love that you're involving your daughter, get them while theyre young :) have you considered what style of white beard she should have yet :D. I think she wants one like santa:)

[EmsE]

Well, I have to say I'm disappointed with my new colony. At first, everything seemed to be going really well- the queen was laying very well and the workers were filling the hive with stores (looking back, that was because they were the old Queen's stock). Then things began to go down hill. The bees temperament changed for the worse -you can hear the tone in the buzz change almost immediately & they like to batter off my veil. At least they don't follow too far.
The most concerning part is their ability to store. Whilst other bee keepers and my other hive (which went on to supersede their queen) were stocking up on nectar, this colony never seemed to store anything. At first I put it down to the June gap and the fact it was weaker than the other hives being a new colony so fed well, but things didn't pick up. From mid August for a month, I fed well but only just had the 7 full frames of sealed stores. When I went to see them yesterday, the sugar bag I put on 2 weeks ago was completely empty. I didn't have a look in as it was too cold & they weren't impressed to see me as it was. Considering the benefits of re-queening next year- if they make it through the winter.

[Jon]

Hi Emse.
What race of bee was the original queen in your 5 frame nuc?
Temperament quite often goes downhill somewhere down the line if you cross one strain of bee with another.
AMM crossed with Carnica has a particularly bad reputation.
If your colony has developed bad temper associated with a change of queen I would wait until next spring and then requeen with a queen from a local beekeeper who keeps the type of bee prevalent in your area.
If you get a bad tempered colony - and everyone does from time to time - you have to bite the bullet at some point and requeen it.

[EmsE]

I think my original queen was a mixture of breeds. The first queen from her this year, I took over 20 miles away to mate with a feral colony my friend (a fellow bee keeper) has had in the eves of her house for the past 25 years- I thought it would be good to get some new genetics into the local area. The feral bees are reportedly placid. Another bee keeper managed to get a swarm from the ferral colony and has reported they are well behaved.

My original queen was superseded (the 2nd queen from her) and this daughter was left on the apiary. Her brood are just as lovely as her mothers (although you do still need gloves!).

I gathered a sample of the stroppy bees yesterday for the Morphomety workshop next week. One thing I did notice was that they seemed smaller- unless it is my imagination

[nemphlar]

As a rule of thumb I would suggest that any hive that can't be inspected without gloves in reasonable conditions ought to be requeened, vicious bees are hard work. there should be someone in the area can sort you out with a local queen.

[EmsE]

I'm lucky our local society is very good in that way and one day hope to be contributing to the efforts myself (with docile bees of course)