What have you done today bee-related?

[AdamD]

Then a mystery..... A Snelgrove Method 2, queen is in top box...I know because I saw her. Brood boxes separated by 4 supers. No queen in bottom box, just an added framed of sealed brood. Yet on one of the frames there is a patch of drone comb and inside every one of them is a single egg. How did that happen?
Boxes have been separated for 7 days now, not enough time for laying workers to develop and it was just a single egg in each.....

A couple of years ago I had a swarm that I had overwintered. I wasn't too keen on it so I split it to make nucs and put my own queens in. As soon as they were queenless, laying workers developed in each of the nucs - pretty well before any of the open brood was sealed. Maybe you have a few bees with a strong desire to lay eggs?

[Japey Edge]

Yesterday was spent extracting honey - which I have decided I can't be chewed with any more
I think I'll just let the bees have it, I'm in no rush to extract any more!!

I need to move the rest of the hives to the out-apiary. Any thoughts on moving a recently requeened hive? Will the stress of a car journey (3-4 miles) make them turn on her?

[Steve 1972]

You will be ok moving them Jazz..last year and the year previous i had to move three Nucs through robbing each time after one week of introducing the Queens..the journey was a bit longer though..76 mile to be precise..lol.

[NigelP]

Yesterday was spent extracting honey - which I have decided I can't be chewed with any more

Just lost a full morning to the chore of extracting 10 supers..... with more filling up rapidly.
It's a mindless repetitive boring job.....I usually turn the radio on loud....usually Planet Rock. The hours fair whistle by.

Your move will be fine.

[Steve 1972]

I'm extracting as i type..only six supers though the good thing about it though the rape is over and the bees are back on the phacilia half of a mile away..another good thing is i have beat last years full years amount already and i still have the end of summer extraction to do..this motorized extractor has saved my sanity..

[Steve 1972]

Had a strange weekend to say the least..i have six Virgin Queens running around in six colonies and i can't for the life of me find a single one.. .. i am desperate to find them as i have three laying Queens in brood boxes that need uniting too three of these colonies to boost numbers for the summer crop..i will try again next Saturday..

However the strangest thing about the weekend was going through a hive that i released a virgin from a queen cell onto the comb and knocked another eight Queen cells down in the hive three weeks ago..the old clipped Queen was nowhere to be seen which i presumed had dropped on the floor outside and died through swarm attempts..
I went through the brood box yesterday and spotted eggs and young larvae... i thought jackpot the virgin has been mated and started laying so i proceeded to go through the rest of the hive to mark and clip the new Queen..lone behold half way through the frames i spotted the old marked Queen.. ..all i can think of is i missed her on the previous inspection and the bees where not happy with the virgin i released and decided to keep the old girl and bin the new one..

[NigelP]

Steve, I'm assuming all hives are in same apiary?
One possibility is move your hives with laying queens and replaces the hives with virgins and move these somewhere else . Your queen right hives should pick up most of the flying bees from your virgin colonies. (Although you may well lose a lot of your flying bees from your moved colonies). Means after a few days when you go back into the "virgin" colonies there are far fewer bees, and you have more chance of finding virgin/squish and newspaper unite back over queenright colonies.
I'm about to do the same for my three "mental" hives, but am moving queenright hives from a different apiary and setting them up next door to each mental hive. Give a few days to re-orientate then move mental hives away.....they will be calmer after they lose their flying bees and a chance of finding the queens....then re-unite and create three massive hives, which should be examples in docility in around 6 weeks time....
Well that's the rough plan...If I can't find the queens I'll have to go for plan B/C or D.....

[Steve 1972]

That sounds like a good plan of attack Nigel but i can only get to my hives on the weekends at the moment..i will get my head into gear this weekend and i will not stop till i hopefully find these Virgins..i will not bother removing any supers for exaction so i will have a good few hours to constantly go through the hives..i have had to do the same a few times with tiny scrub drone laying Queens but i usually get them in the end..if all else fails i will try your method but i can only leave them for 24hrs to bleed any of the bees of in the virgin colonies..fingers and toes crossed that i find them before i have to do anything else..

[AdamD]

However the strangest thing about the weekend was going through a hive that i released a virgin from a queen cell onto the comb and knocked another eight Queen cells down in the hive three weeks ago..the old clipped Queen was nowhere to be seen which i presumed had dropped on the floor outside and died through swarm attempts..
I went through the brood box yesterday and spotted eggs and young larvae... i thought jackpot the virgin has been mated and started laying so i proceeded to go through the rest of the hive to mark and clip the new Queen..lone behold half way through the frames i spotted the old marked Queen.. ..all i can think of is i missed her on the previous inspection and the bees where not happy with the virgin i released and decided to keep the old girl and bin the new one..

It's possible that the virgin is there as well; once she has mated they will push the old queen out. If you find an un-marked queen in a few weeks time, you'll know.

[AdamD]

I have just a few supers to take off - currently it's June Gap time so there's not much going on despite some blackberry flowering.

One nuc was being robbed. It had only been there a couple of days, so had few flyers to lose, so I have moved it and replaced it with a box with some dregs of left-over syrup in it. Adam's tip of the day:- The reason for replacing is that if a robbed colony disappears, bees will find it gone and look to find it and try another hive and gate-crash that one. If the robbed colony is replaced as I have done, the bees will learn that the food source has run dry and then simply leave it alone.

Delighted to see that 6 of 6 virgin queens have mated and have just started laying although one is a scrub queen from a Warnholtz mini-nuc that made their own. Out of 10 more grafts due to be open on 14th, one was killed by the scrub queen and another hasn't opened - or it's been sealed up again which sometimes happens. Short of time, I'll check later.