Spring Splits

This year, my main focus is increase. Due to the higher than normal losses over the past 6 months! So far, the stars have aligned nicely for this goal, as I have been able to create around 15 Nuc’s over the past couple of weeks.

It seems that many folks call a “Nuc” a Spring Split. For me, any split is dividing the frames in a mature hive evenly among two hives. I usually tackle splits (if I do ’em) in late April and early May, during a full on Flow. Regardless, this is the perfect time for me to create a Nuc (or Split!) in areas just to the east of Richmond, Va.

Bees on a Frame
What I mean by “working a frame”

Starting in March, I begin to gauge my hives – usually during the Spring clean-up (scraping frames and bottom boards, re-leveling, etc..) But, oftentimes I am simply pulling off the boxes until I get to the bottom deep and pulling a few frames in the center of the deep. My rule is to only pull a Nuc when the weather is right and the colony is at least working a few frames in the bottom deep. By gauging my hives in mid-March, I can usually tell when to next check them for possibly Nuc creation.

Once I identify the target colony, I need to find the queen. In fact, regardless of whether I take a Nuc or not, I make it an absolute must to find all queens by April 1 (and mark them). In this way, I know that any unmarked queen is last year’s queen – I have probably marked 10 white queens this Spring (the rest were either already white or even green and blue – I actually noted one Red queen, but once I realized that queen had to be from 2013, I wonder if I didn’t see some pollen or something….need to find that queen again!) I then place the frame with the queen off to the side, leaning up against the hive. It’s now work time!

The Nuc is a 5-framer. If I am creating a Deep Nuc (colony is working 5 or 6 frames), I move 3 frames to the Nuc (the remaining two are either already drawn frames or with foundation). I make sure that a frame with eggs is dead center in the Nuc. Once the frames are squared, I then shake 3 frames of bees onto the top of the Nuc frames. Lots fall on the ground, but they make their way back to the Nuc. Once done, I put the top on the Nuc and let her be for 3 weeks (it should be noted that I create all of my Nucs within 50′ of the parent hive – most times within 10′, and that’s where they stay).

For Medium Nucs, I have found that I need 4 frames from the parent hive. I also create most of them a bit later in the season (usually mid-April.) I may have 3 out there right now, but will create quite a few more in a week or two.

Once the Nuc is created, I let it sit for 3 weeks. By then, they will have raised and hatched a new queen, so I am ONLY actively looking for an open queen cell or two. If I do not see that, they receive another frame of eggs and I make a note to check again in 3 weeks. Once I see an open queen cell, I return in 2 weeks to find either evidence of a queen (eggs, larvae) or the queen herself. They get another frame of eggs if I don’t find one of these things, otherwise I note that we have a laying queen and come back 2 weeks later to mark the queen and take action on the Nuc (sell, convert to full hive, move, etc…)

These are the Split/Nuc creation basics. In some cases, I take several Nucs from the same hive. Some queens seem hell bent on growing like gangbusters. I will continue to revisit these hives, sometimes one week apart, creating a new Nuc each time. But, I never put the bees at jeopardy. I only do this with my really strong hives. They seem focused on building up to swarm, so I take advantage of this growth until they actually do.

Still Waiting on the Flow

Although I did have some concerns after learning of the swarming hive in New Kent (see previous post), I have been very pleased with the findings in my hives since then. The majority of hives have a very respectable force of walking drones and are building out nicely, in a measured fashion. If weather were not a potential factor, now would be a great time to create a good number of Nuc’s. I have created 13 thus far and expect to create a similar number this weekend.

On the down side, I did find yet another entire out yard with dead-outs (this only amounted to two hives, but it is still notable as I have never lost an entire yard before but have lost two this past Winter.) As stated earlier, I blame this more on me than the weather or the bees. The last 6 months of 2016 were horrendous when it came to other responsibilities in my life.

First a note about the Flow – or the period of time when the blooming plants really put out a ton of nectar for the bees – this is truly the GO time for my bee hives. I have a pretty simple system for determining when the flow is on – take a few tablespoons of raw honey and place it in a bowl on the picnic table in my backyard. If bees arrive soon, the real Flow is not here. If they ignore it (sometimes for days or weeks), the real Flow is here. As of yesterday, the real Flow was not here yet, despite all of the warm weather.

Now, on to the only hive I have (so far) had swarm on me this year. I have found that the colonies in Henrico County are anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks ahead of my hives in Charles City County (maybe the warmth of Richmond puts them ahead?). For years, I would start my Spring inspections in Charles City, seeing that I still had a few weeks to go (before overcrowding/swarm issues) during those inspections, only to find hives that had already swarmed in Henrico once I got there. It finally dawned on me that I needed to START in Henrico, which I have done the last few years with good effect. About a week ago, I was down to my very last hive in Henrico – actually a young hive that I had in my backyard. I pushed a couple of puffs of smoke through the entrance, then opened her up. The VERY second that I pulled off the top, bees starting rolling out the entrance. For about 20 seconds, I was confused about what the heck was happening – then it dawned on me. Looking up, I saw the swarm rolling above me and watched (sadly) as it eventually made its way to the treetops and moved on. There is no way to know for sure, but I have serious doubts that the old queen would fly like that. This made me believe this was a secondary or tertiary cast. The only thing that I noted here was that this was the 4th time this bloodline swarmed early on me. I like the bees (very healthy, put on good honey, etc…), but that is one trait that I am not overly fond of (early swarming).

So, the beekeeping Spring moves onward. As of now, I am in good spirits about the outlook, despite my higher than normal losses this past Winter. It appears that I have suffered 19% hive loss, largely due to my inattention to the bees in the last half of 2016. I am confident that I can recover from this based on what I am seeing in the yards today. But, only time will tell!!!

March Swarms

So, here I am, fairly confident that we are only about 2 weeks ahead of schedule in my beekeeping world and a buddy pings me with a large swarm caught in New Kent County, yesterday!!! For the most part, I have to tell myself that Mother Nature knows best, but having seen hives swarm in November (0% chance of success here), I know she sometimes is just experimenting…

Regardless, I took a few hours off today to dig into some of my Henrico hives to see where they were. Based on my findings, there are a few walking drones about and, maybe, a few flying, but I cannot believe this is a good time to create a Nuc yet. I created one, off of a very strong hive, just for kicks, but am thinking that this Saturday is going to be my first big Nuc day, with the following two weekends being even bigger.

For me, the main focus right now is prepping for April. I want lots of frames with foundation and a good bit of prepared drawn comb for the coming weeks. In general, I have found that placing foundation in hives (in March) does nothing to increase space in a hive. The bees do not seem to really draw out those frames – all I have accomplished is to reduce the number of frames that they are working! But, come mid-April, all of that changes and they readily accept the foundation.

The final oddity that I will mention is that I discovered that one of my queens had somehow gotten above the queen excluder over the Winter… Things like this turn an inspection from a 20 minute “breakdown/clean/level” to a 45 to 60 minute “hunt for the witch”. Fortunately, I found Her and she was marked Blue! Argh! There goes the “they must have had a late 2016 swarm and the virgin moved up there before she became big” theory! This one was my fault. My note taking has become somewhat lax or exists on multiple pads or scraps of paper (never easy to find!) So, I bit the bullet and started to use Hive Tracks. We shall see how it goes.

Walking Drones

Although I have heard of several eager beekeepers talking about creating Nuc’s (for a variety of reasons, mostly around purported queen cell creation in their overwintered hives) already, I never create Nuc’s until I see a lot of walking drones in my hives in a given area. I an definitively say that my areas (eastern Henrico and central/western Charles City County) do not have a good population of walking drones in the hives, based on observations of a half a dozen yards, at least, in each area.

In truth, I have already been down that road, in my early beekeeping days. Warm weather hits in February, a few hives look really strong and I was off to the races in my Nuc creation! Some Nuc’s failed and those that made it seemed to start off strong but always had issues in short order. On the other hand, I have found that creating Nuc’s when there are plenty of walking drones in the hive is a very good indicator of success (a strong, long living queen and hive.)

Some might ask what the heck I am talking about, when it comes to “walking drones”. The base of this practice focuses on a theory (that I personally have found to be VERY true) that queens (and their hives) do much better when bred very well (by 13+ drones) in their mating flights. To get this kind of mating, the local population of drones needs to be high enough to make this happen.

By the time we hit February, I rarely ever find any drones from the past year still in the hives. All were either kicked out the past Fall or have died of old age in the hive. As things begin to ramp up (pollen and nectar start ebbing into the hive), the workers will encourage the queen to begin laying drone eggs. The key for the Nuc creator is to determine when these new drones will be out to mate with their queens!

It comes down to good old Bee Math. Once a drone hatches and begins “walking around on the comb”, you have about 3 weeks before it starts flying out of the hive to do the “mating thing”. Thus, many beekeepers use the date at which they find “walking drones” as a good time to start a new Nuc. When you start a new Nuc, it takes the bees about two weeks to raise a new queen and then another week for her to get her legs under her before she goes out to mate, for a total of 3 weeks. Thus, “walking drones” (also 3 weeks) is a good indicator of when to start a Nuc.

But, in my view (and experience) this just means a few drones will be out when my queen is ready. I like to have A LOT of drones out there (see theory above). So, I usually wait a week or two AFTER I see the first walking drones before I even begin my Nuc creation.

As of yesterday, I have only seen capped drone cells in all of my hives (despite all of the warm weather) – not one, single walking drone. So, I am at least two weeks out from the creation of any Nuc’s as of now.

A first run out into the Yards

The first hive inspections of the year are always an adventure of up’s and down’s, although “inspection” is a strong word for it. Typically, I am going to 3 or 4 yards, checking hive weight (lifting the back of hive) and pulling off each super and/or brood chamber until I get to the bottom box and then I level her out for the year. Finally, I remove the entrance reducer if one was placed on her last Fall.

As long as there are lots of bees, decent hive weight and they are bringing in pollen that is about all that I do. I make a quick note about weight and how many bees are in the hive. The heaviest (with the most honey) are noted as emergency stores for any light hive and ones with the most bees are noted for early Nucs. The majority are simply noted for when I believe it will be good to check again and (maybe) drop a honey super or two on them. In rare situations (lots of bees, but low honey), I will make a note to quickly bring a super (or at least a few frames) of honey from another hive out to them.

Now, to the challenges! Sometimes, I find only a few bees. As will be noted from my past “lesson’s learned”, I do not like to spend a lot of time on a queen that is a poor performer. Even so, I will give her the benefit of the doubt (in these early inspections) and make a note to drop a few frames of capped brood in the hive (from a strong hive.) Maybe two or three at the most. I already know that a hive with this few bees is unlikely to produce honey this year, but I am willing to take a chance that her genetics are good, she just drew a poor hand this past Winter. But, that’s it. The hive needs to show marked improvement in about 40 days, otherwise I will be re-queening them.

Finally, the dreaded Dead-out’s. I know they are out there, the very first time I don the beekeeping suit for the year. The question is “how many”. I have been fortunate to only lose between 5 and 10% of my hives in any Winter, but I know the Big One is in my future. Will it be this year? My first outing this year was to my westernmost yard which literally looks out over the city of Richmond on its eastern side. That yard had two mature hives and one overwintered Nuc. For the first time in my recollection, I arrived at a yard to find all hives were deadouts. The nuc, in fact, had died the previous Fall (based on the wax moth damage). The other two were pristine, with a good bit of honey and pollen, but no bees. I could not help but wonder if this would be my experience with the rest of my hives. I did very little “Winter Prep” last Fall, due to work related issues consuming all of my time. Would I lose a ton of my hives?

As fate would have it, the next three yards that I visited had very strong hives and even one overwintered Nuc that was only in ONE NUC body (I run overwintered Nucs in 2 Nuc bodies, so this one slipped thru the cracks because of how busy I was last Fall.) That little queen had made it through the Winter on 5 frickin’ frames!!! Booyah! I did have a couple of other deadouts in other yards, but the rest of the hives were roaring strong. And so the year begins, with successes and failures. I like to think that the strongest continue to thrive and my genetic pool gets stronger and stronger with each passing year.

Wow!!!!! Technical issues!

The new year came in and things really started hopping in my beekeeping adventures. I was able to tackle a lot of the tasks that I slate for Jan and Feb, but end up rushing to complete in late March or even April! Things were going so well that I decided to go ahead and add a post and maybe become a bit more active on my blog this year.

Low and behold, I find out that the daggone thing has been down for a couple of months. After a bit of legwork, I discovered that the site was not recoverable and had to rely on back-up’s. Despite being in IT and knowing you need to take regular back-up’s, my last good backup was from 2013! Argh.

But, all things considered, I think it worked out fine. I have not been very active the last few years, so I am fairly certain that I didn’t lose much in this debacle. I still have some clean up work to do, but hope to begin relaying some of my bee adventures soon!

More Thoughts on Queen Excluders

When I first started beekeeping, I asked about queen excluders. An experienced beekeeper in the area advised that he never used the things. He called them ‘honey excluders’ and went so far as to tell me that he believed that nectar laden bees would sometimes be so swollen that they couldn’t get through the excluder to store honey. So, he never used them.

What about wax moths? Everyone says that if the queen lays in your  honey supers, you’ll end up getting wax moths during the off months. He replied that he would put his wet (extracted) supers back on the hives after getting the honey from them. The bees could then guard/maintain them until the first frost, when he would yank them off and store them stacked in a pole shed nearby. The wax moth wouldn’t bother his supers, even if the queen had laid in them.

So, I decided that I would take this strategy too. I think the primary underlying reason, for me, is that it was just one more thing (both to manage, re the bees, and to purchase, re my wallet) – I was not interested in one more thing. Therefore, I never used them the first few years. In truth, I remember giving a few away that I ended up with when I purchased some fellow’s equipment. I was done with them (before I had ever used them!).

As a side note, there are other good uses for queen excluders than simply keeping the queen out of the honey supers. But, I didn’t know that then…

Things went along just great for a couple of years. My queens would obey the rule that you do not cross the honey barrier, primarily laying and living in my brood chambers – leaving my honey supers alone. Then, it happened – first with one colony and then to several – the crazy Lady crossed the honey barrier! In every case, the colony had put away (capped) two supers of honey. But, when I came to extract, the queen had moved right up the middle (in one case, it was the actual outer two frames) of the hive, laying as she went.

At this time, I had several hives with a mixture of shallows and mediums. This prevented me from simply consolidating the capped frames into one super. In the end, I remember taking just the capped frames (but, being new, I had nothing to replace them with as far as drawn comb is concerned), running home to extract them and returning a day or two later to put them back into the hive. It was a real logistical nightmare (of course, I’d forget one and come back – sometimes months later, to find a mess of wax in that empty slot!)

On the plus side, I was able to successfully store these supers (those with and without brood in them) through the Winter by just stacking them in my shed and didn’t have a wax moth problem. But, storing them over the Winter was not the real challenge that I would face.

After a lot of problems with the queen going up, I did start to use a queen excluder sparingly. I have definitely found that certain lines of queens are more likely to move up (when one moves up in a year, you can be pretty sure that her daughter will move up when you (or they) replace her.) It’s some kind of genetic thing (I moved one hive several times – not because of her proclivity to lay in the honey supers, but for other reasons – and she (or her daughters and grand-daughters) almost always moved up in June or July…so, location seemed to be ruled out.)

The real problem came in the Summer of 2011 when I had two hives really out perform, honey-wise. They put it away like no one’s business. I’d have to check my notes to be sure how many honey supers were on the one at Westover Plantation, but I do know that it was too high for me to look down into the hive without some kind of ladder. The kick in the gut came when I went to get the honey supers and found the hive mostly robbed out. They had swarmed and reduced in population a lot (probably swarmed many times) and simply could not protect all of the honey. The bees were still holding on in their brood area, but most of the honey supers were torn up and I even had some wax moth issues. This was a real wake up call.

So, I realized that I couldn’t always simply leave supers on the hive (nor could I put them all back on the hive once I extracted them.) I needed a way to store them in the Summer. I quickly found that my ‘pole shed stacks’ worked just fine in the Summer, but only with the clean supers that had never had brood in them. Now, I started to understand the wisdom of the queen excluder. You need to keep that queen out unless you can keep the supers to two or three boxes at most. If your colony of honey bees can produce more, you must extract the extra before they need 4 or more supers and put the wet super back on the hives.

But, that is not an option for me. With real life constantly throwing me curve balls and sucking up my time, I need a method that requires the least visits to the hives. Queen excluders were the answer. I not make a concerted effort to keep one on ever hive (I just ordered another group of them for the new  hives that I added this year.)

But, what about the honey excluder idea? Well, for one, I never use an excluder on a super of foundation (undrawn frames.) I’ll put it on there once they have it drawn out and are filling it, but not before. Secondly, when I find a hive that is definitely acting reluctant to use a super above an excluder, I’ll remove it for 2 weeks and let them start to use it. I have had queens use that opportunity to jump up there, but mostly they don’t immediately go up there until there’s a lot of resources stored up there to feed the babies.

So, all in all, I now am an advocate of queen excluders. It’s a big flip-flop, but what the heck!? It’s part of beekeeping. What about those times when the queen moves up into the super? I do my best to consolidate the frames with brood evidence and keep them on the hives (to protect them from wax moth) through the Summer and Fall. I’ll remove them for Winter and used them to checkerboard come Spring.

At any rate, that’s where I am on this one now. I’ll probably flip-flop again, based on  my history, but I feel very comfortable with my current strategy (of course, I probably said that when I was ‘disrespecting’ the queen excluders too!)

Honey Robber

Well, my ‘flow’ definitely hit pretty hard the last part of May and it’s still coming in a bit today. I was wondering if it was going to hit at all this year!

Having learned my lesson last year, I was ready to go out last weekend and pull all of the capped supers. I ended up making two hauls and think this will be a pretty good  honey year, but we’ll see. One of the best things to occur this year was an experiment with my first fume board(s) and a substance called Honey Robber. Basically, a fume board is simply a shallow box of the exact dimensions of my 10 frame hives. One end is open and the other end is closed with a kind of clear plastic (on the outside) and felt (on the inside.)

To use this tool, you take a foul smelling substance (I used something called Honey Robber) and sprinkle it onto the felt (I dribbled it in an X-pattern, twice quickly). Then, you place it directly onto the hive (after you remove the cover and inner cover), above your capped honey supers. The sun beats down on the clear plastic, heating up the felt and causing the liquid to vaporize into the hive.

The stuff stinks to high heaven, so it’s no wonder that the bees skedaddle away from it. After a few minutes (I waited 7), you can pull the honey super from the hive and not a bee will be on it! I was amazed – it worked like a charm with a couple of exceptions (see below.) Compare that to last year when I was taking one frame at a time from the super, shaking/brushing the bees off and then transferring it to a holding box in my truck. It definitely saved me hours of time and was quite seamless.

There were a couple of asterisks to this adventure, all of which I had read about online but had to learn myself (I’m stubborn that way…)

1. Don’t put that stuff in your car/truck. My cab still stinks, although it seems to be a bit less today. It smells exactly like puke, which I remember well from my college days…

2. It won’t chase bees off of brood. I could not figure out why some of the bees wouldn’t leave one of my supers and ignored it (like a fool) and ended up with capped brood back at home in my honey stack. Hopefully, I didn’t take the queen too….

3. It needs to be in the 80’s and it is really seamless when the sun is shining on the hive. In the shade, the sun doesn’t do its magic by heating the clear plastic top (and thus vaporizing the stinky stuff even more.) I got it to work in the shade, but there was always a rogue bee that didn’t seem to mind the smell. In the sun, none of them stuck around.

Unfortunately, I did not mark which supers came from which hives. I actually discovered a viable, capped queen cell on one (found the developing larva while uncapping.) I have no idea which hive was in swarm mode. None whatsoever.

Of final note, it is clear to me that some queen and blood lines need queen excluders more than others. The exact same hives that I had problems with the queen moving into the supers last year also had the problem this year (even though some were now lead by the daughter of last year’s miscreant.) On the other hand, those hives that didn’t go above the honey barrier last year repeated their performance this year. I am definitely going out to find queens and install excluders this weekend (unless it rains the whole time!) I’d like to remedy the problem that I had last year once and for all.

All in all, a pretty good first pass at extraction. The kitchen is still a mess, but I am hopeful of resolving that shortly!

Will June Be A Banner Month?

So far this year, nothing has happened according to plan. I know full well that many things (with honey bees) do not go ‘to plan’, but I have never seen so many things go awry. I was unable to get out to the hives this past weekend, so I am looking forward to seeing them this weekend. So far, I have not seen a ‘general major flow’. Some hives have put on a few supers, but the majority (as of May 19) were working 1 or 1.5 supers. I simply have not seen a ‘general flow’ where everyone puts on the pounds. Maybe everyone is full up right now, but I sort of doubt it, given the wet week we had last week. Will June turn out to be the real banner month for honey? We’ll see…

And what about Nuc’s?! Good lord. I’ve never had it this tough. I honestly think I have killed more queens then I’ve sold (in Nuc’s.) Couple this with the fact that a ton of my Nuc’s did not successfully raise a queen, and I am really far behind on the Nuc schedule. I have taken to combining strong Nuc’s with Laying Worker Nuc’s. The queen right Nuc takes over the other one and goes to town laying in them and filling them up. This allows me to split them about 3 weeks later and make a solid Nuc out of them. I have never done this before (but, I’ve never had so many Nuc’s with laying workers.) Between the weather and my personal life, it’s been one heck of a rough Spring. I hope my last starts thrive in June and I can finally finish providing what I promised!

Finally, how about swarms? I do not go on all swarm calls, but I use them as a measure for what’s going on out there. I’ve received the fewest swarm calls in 3 years (and I really only started to take them 3 years ago.) Of those calls, none have been banner swarms (maybe one). They say a ‘swarm in June is worth a silver spoon’ – I assume it was in a year like this one. I haven’t seen many silver spoons so far. Maybe in June…

Finally, what about the hive problems!? I have already had 3 hives turn up with failed queens after a swarm. Two ended up with laying workers (again, family issues kept me away from the hives longer than I had expected.) Fortunately, I had a few Nuc’s to combine them with, but that just set the Nuc program back further.

The bottom line is that this has been a tough year for me. I blame it on this weather. We actually had a frost warning in May. I’ve been gardening for decades and have never heard of something like that.

At any rate, thought I’d whine a bit. It provides some relief….

Queens, Swarms and Queen Excluders

On Mother’s Day, I received a call from a fellow on the north side of Richmond about a swarm. It was a 25 minute drive and from a location that I have not collected a swarm before. Plus, he kept going on about how big the thing was, so I couldn’t resist!

But, Sunday was becoming very tough. I wanted to go spend some time with my Mom, plant another round of beans, squash, cukes and melons, and (of course) had 5000 bee tasks to do. When I decided to get that swarm, I decided it would be a ‘grab and run’ job. I rarely do these (truly – I’ve done maybe 2 of them and both of them were in the distant past when I would actually drive an hour to pick up a swarm.) This kind of swarm pick up focuses on dropping the swarm in the hive body, waiting a few (maybe 5) minutes to see that the bees are not reforming on the tree and some are coming into the box, taping them up and leaving. I effectively leave a lot of foragers at the site (scouts, out and about) and risk not having the queen. Normally, I’d leave the hive body there and come back after dark. But, with my current schedule, there was no way that was going to happen today.

At the site, the swarm was 5′ off the ground and an easy catch. As I talked to the land owner, he asked if I thought there were multiple queens in the swarm. With good confidence, I replied that it was unlikely. The size of this swarm said to me that this was a primary swarm and the new queens had probably not hatched yet. The next swarm would have a better chance of having a couple of queens. Heh. I should have known that this was major foreshadowing…

So, with a haul back down the 64/95 Exchange, I made it there and back in about an hour and setup the swarm box before I headed out to the bee yards to check honey supers. This is my favorite time of the year, as a full hive can draw out and nearly full a full Medium super in a week. I don’t like any of my hives to be lacking space!

Within 30 seconds of opening up the hive the bees were everywhere. Having seen my first swarm just weeks ago, I realized they were ‘re-swarming’ (or basically absconding!) I couldn’t blame them as they probably were thinking that this new home sucked with all of the jostling and so forth they went through only moments after I shook them into the hive body. Seeing them begin to collect on a nearby bush in my backyard, I grabbed a queen excluder and placed it under the primary hive body that still had most of the swarm. I didn’t have time to deal with these troublesome bees, I was getting irritated that I had wasted time getting them (on a very busy day) since they were acting like they were going to leave again and I figured this was my only chance to have a chance at keeping them.

I had never done this before, but had frequently read online about beekeepers in the South putting a queen excluder beneath a hived swarm to keep them from absconding. I figured that if, by chance, the queen had not yet left the box, I could manage to keep the swarm (and the small half-quart of bees hanging on the bush would return to the main hive when the queen didn’t follow them.) I worried about killing the queen, as the bees were spazzing out when I put the excluder beneath them, but I simply didn’t have time and was actually getting mad at the bees (heh – a character flaw for sure, but times were tough on Sunday!)

When I returned that evening, there that little troublesome ‘child swarm’ was, still clinging to the bush at night. I could still see a bunch of bees in the original swarm hive, about 15 feet away, so I figured this little extension were simply rebels without a cause (queen) and blank ’em. Of course, the next day at work it was constantly on my mind. And, as is always the case, I was so busy at work, I had something like a 40 minute window at work to deal with them. So, I hustled home and hived those troublesome bees in a small Nuc and left it at that.

Now, here’s the first mistake. It did  dawn on me the next day that maybe there were two queens. I also began to wonder that, even if there was just one queen, what if she was actually a virgin and I had her tied up in that primary hive with the queen excluder, unable to go out an mate? I actually had this thought multiple times, but never go around to acting on it until after work on Friday (5 days after catching the swarm.)

Going through the big hive/swarm, I found the little queen. Indeed, she was a virgin and no eggs were in sight. The big dilemma is ‘has she gotten too old to mate’? I have no idea how something like that would work. I removed the excluder and will give them a frame of eggs from one of my big hives in an outyard on Saturday, just to be safe. They had already drawn out 6 frames in the Deep and I wasn’t even feeding them. I then checked the Nuc and VOILA, there was the old queen (or at least a full sized queen that had started laying eggs pretty much the day I hived them, so I assume she’s a yellow queen – that’s what I’ll mark her with before moving them to a full Deep anyway.)

So, maybe the swarm wasn’t trying to leave after all. Maybe the old queen simply broke off from the main bunch after I set them down. Who knows how many queens may have been in that original swarm. Regardless, the lesson learned for me is that I absolutely cannot delay in getting that queen excluder off of a swarm (assuming I ever use that trick again.)