On 7th June we returned home late afternoon and found a fairly large cast hanging around 10' up in a pine tree. Very tricky to remove! They were almost certainly from the Paddies hive as they had been bearding all day, the day before, but were now behaving normally. Mick went up on the stepladder and unfortunately they fell on his head when he cut the branch off. We put them in the wheelbarrow in front of a nucleus box as usual, but they really didn't want to enter. They kept going in and then coming out again. They eventually decided to hang on the bottom of the box. We then tried again into a different nucleus box but they were still not interested. during all of this we didn't see a queen and suspect we lost her during the capture. We then left them alone and by the next day they had defected.
On 8th June we took a nucleus box with one of our swarms (Dolphins) to Ali & James at Marhamchurch. On the way we called in to Lesley & Chris' and helped them hive the swarm (Posties) we had taken to them 10 days before. All the bars had good comb on with lots of brood and stores. Then on 14th June we helped Ali & James transfer their bees to their adapted hive and found the same. There was a little less honey though, so we advised feeding them for a little longer.
Over the next couple of weeks we began to realise we had probably given these 2 swarms away a little prematurely, as we became increasingly worried about our three hives that had swarmed. By 23rd June, a month after they had all swarmed, there were no signs that they had queens, let alone successfully mated queens. We decided to take a look and there was no sign of brood in all 3 hives. We decided to leave them a little longer, before taking any action, but ordered another black Irish queen as a precaution. The Paddypines had built up amazingly and had lots of brood and stores. However they had been rather creative with their comb building and there was a lot of crosscomb. This made it too difficult to remove any brood combs for the other hives, to test their queen status.
It does seem that swarms build much better comb when they are put into nucleus boxes initially. Unsure why this is but it's another lesson to learn for the future.
On 27th June I took a look at the 3 possibly queenless hives. The Posties and the Dolphins were the same and the Posties were rather grumpy. However I saw some larvae in the Paddies hive. Only a very small amount and not a very good pattern, but there none the less. We remembered that her mother had taken a month to start laying last year. The colony was much calmer and behaving more normally than the other 2 hives.
We plan to combine the Dolphins and the Posties, providing there are no laying workers and introduce the new queen to them when she arrives.
On 7th July we were very surprised by a truly enormous swarm from the Paddypines. They had been a swarm themselves just over 6 weeks before!
We successfully hived them into a nucleus box and saw the queen. They took 2 jars of syrup every day so we decided to continue feeding them for a while. We named them the Paddyelms, as they were hanging in an elm tree.
The next day we decided to take a look at the Paddies and think there is some brood but not sure. We also took another look in the Posties. The weather wasn't brilliant and they objected strongly so we quickly shut them up and retreated.
On 13th July the weather had improved enough to try again so we carefully went through both the Posties and the Dolphins. The Posties were the grumpiest. There were more of them and they had a fair amount of honey. No sign of laying workers so we decided they would be the best colony to introduce the new queen to when she arrives. The Dolphins were more subdued and we are unsure, but think that they may be developing laying workers. They had less stores and far fewer bees.
The plan is that we will combine the 2 hives in some way, but we need to make sure the laying workers are excluded.
After thinking carefully and looking up information about the different options we decided to move the Dolphins away around 20 - 30 ft and change the orientation of the hive. If we do this in the middle of the day, when most of the flying bees are out, they will return to where the hive had been, next to the Posties hive and hopefully beg their way in there. The laying workers will stay in the hive and eventually die out. We also decided to put some comb from the Paddypines hive, with capped brood on it, into the Posties hive so that when the new queen comes next week she will have some new young bees to look after her.
The next day we removed a very thick malformed comb of honey from the Posties hive and got them ready for another bar from the Paddypines. We then looked through the Paddypines for capped brood. We were a little apprehensive, as last time we looked in there was a lot of cross comb. Fortunately they seem to have sorted this out a little and we quickly found a good comb and after brushing the bees off, transferred it over. We also gave the Posties some feed to hopefully keep them occupied for the next few days.
We were amazed that there seemed to be a lot of bees still in the Paddypines hive, despite them having sent off a swarm a week ago. There was also a capped queen cell clearly visible through the window.
We then moved the Paddyelms into their new hive and gave them 3 more bars. They had built 8 good combs in the week since they were a swarm. No sign of any brood yet.
On 8th June we took a nucleus box with one of our swarms (Dolphins) to Ali & James at Marhamchurch. On the way we called in to Lesley & Chris' and helped them hive the swarm (Posties) we had taken to them 10 days before. All the bars had good comb on with lots of brood and stores. Then on 14th June we helped Ali & James transfer their bees to their adapted hive and found the same. There was a little less honey though, so we advised feeding them for a little longer.
Over the next couple of weeks we began to realise we had probably given these 2 swarms away a little prematurely, as we became increasingly worried about our three hives that had swarmed. By 23rd June, a month after they had all swarmed, there were no signs that they had queens, let alone successfully mated queens. We decided to take a look and there was no sign of brood in all 3 hives. We decided to leave them a little longer, before taking any action, but ordered another black Irish queen as a precaution. The Paddypines had built up amazingly and had lots of brood and stores. However they had been rather creative with their comb building and there was a lot of crosscomb. This made it too difficult to remove any brood combs for the other hives, to test their queen status.
It does seem that swarms build much better comb when they are put into nucleus boxes initially. Unsure why this is but it's another lesson to learn for the future.
On 27th June I took a look at the 3 possibly queenless hives. The Posties and the Dolphins were the same and the Posties were rather grumpy. However I saw some larvae in the Paddies hive. Only a very small amount and not a very good pattern, but there none the less. We remembered that her mother had taken a month to start laying last year. The colony was much calmer and behaving more normally than the other 2 hives.
We plan to combine the Dolphins and the Posties, providing there are no laying workers and introduce the new queen to them when she arrives.
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| Around half the swarm were in at this stage |
On 7th July we were very surprised by a truly enormous swarm from the Paddypines. They had been a swarm themselves just over 6 weeks before!
We successfully hived them into a nucleus box and saw the queen. They took 2 jars of syrup every day so we decided to continue feeding them for a while. We named them the Paddyelms, as they were hanging in an elm tree.
The plan is that we will combine the 2 hives in some way, but we need to make sure the laying workers are excluded.
After thinking carefully and looking up information about the different options we decided to move the Dolphins away around 20 - 30 ft and change the orientation of the hive. If we do this in the middle of the day, when most of the flying bees are out, they will return to where the hive had been, next to the Posties hive and hopefully beg their way in there. The laying workers will stay in the hive and eventually die out. We also decided to put some comb from the Paddypines hive, with capped brood on it, into the Posties hive so that when the new queen comes next week she will have some new young bees to look after her.
The next day we removed a very thick malformed comb of honey from the Posties hive and got them ready for another bar from the Paddypines. We then looked through the Paddypines for capped brood. We were a little apprehensive, as last time we looked in there was a lot of cross comb. Fortunately they seem to have sorted this out a little and we quickly found a good comb and after brushing the bees off, transferred it over. We also gave the Posties some feed to hopefully keep them occupied for the next few days.
We were amazed that there seemed to be a lot of bees still in the Paddypines hive, despite them having sent off a swarm a week ago. There was also a capped queen cell clearly visible through the window.
We then moved the Paddyelms into their new hive and gave them 3 more bars. They had built 8 good combs in the week since they were a swarm. No sign of any brood yet.
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| Mick watches the new hive with Paddyelms in situ. |
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| The Paddypines |
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| The Dolphins and Posties ready to be combined tomorrow |
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| The Paddies |
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