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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #7107  by AdamD
 13 May 2020, 15:30
Went through a colony that had attempted to swarm a week ago; I had left one open queencell in the hive at the time. Unfortunately I stood on the clipped queen and a handfull of bees as she had made her way to in front of another hive - probably the day before. :(
Today, I removed all the emergency queencells leaving just the one original. (I hope).
The colony was a big one as I had combined a flighty colony with it in March so it was running with 18 frames of brood in April - a bit too much for them to stay in the hive!

The good thing about leaving an open queencell after a colony has swarmed is that you know you have a week - so you can be sure of removing any other queencells that might be made during that time. if you leave a sealed queencell after a swarm, it can mean that the queen is out in just a few days, with a bunch of emergency queencells in the hive as well by that time - and then your queen leaves the hive with 1/2 the bees.
 #7126  by NigelP
 13 May 2020, 17:47
Nothin bee related today.
So I took the government advice and went fishing. Yeee Haaaa.
Was rewarded with a near 5 lb overwintered rainbow. It was an epic battle. Even caught a few weight challenged ones that were returned to grow bigger.
 #7128  by Steve 1972
 13 May 2020, 18:02
Excellent day out by the sound of things..i used to love going fishing but i got addicted to it so to speak..i would finish work on a Friday and go to Topcliffe where i would fish for barbel and pike stop there night fishing and day fishing and come home on Sunday..i did it for years but someone burgled a house one night in Topcliffe so night fishing was banned..that ended my fishing days..
 #7129  by Patrick
 13 May 2020, 20:16
[quote="NigelP"rewarded with a near 5 lb overwintered rainbow. It was an epic battle. [/quote]

I bet it was, lovely fish. I managed a single trip day before lockdown. Freezer nearly empty of troot, first time in years.. bring it on..
 #7181  by NigelP
 16 May 2020, 15:14
Weird old season.....
2 hives ready to swarm (definitely not supersedure), so vertical split aka pagden with a Snelgrove board about 10 days ago.
Inspected today and both bottom boxes have queen cells, I has emerged (ooops missed that one) another is not far behind in the other box. Yet both queens are still present, one is still laying one isn't. How peculiar.
I figured just let them get on with and sort themselves out, cos I've got no idea what they are playing at.
 #7189  by Steve 1972
 16 May 2020, 21:42
Its been a busy old day and time consuming to say the least.. :shock:
My goal today which was planned.. :roll: (i know nothing goes to plan) and i did not go as planned for sure..
Anyway my goal today was to remove supers and check the brood boxes and here goes..

Hive (1) ..Lovely 2019 F1 Buckfast on single brood box..the two supers where jam packed but nothing worth extracting yet..a 3rd was added..no swarm preps and all was good..

Hive (2).. half ok local mongrels 2019 Queen..single brood..the two supers where jam packed but nothing worth extracting..3rd super added..

Hive (3)..Nightmare..a local mongrel colony headed by a 1019 Queen that was ok at one point..it tried to swarm two weeks ago with a clipped Queen which was lost..one Queen cell was left with the colony and the frame marked..today the hive had around 14 Queen cells and the capped one i left for them..i knocked all but one down till i got the the marked frame...when i got to the marked frame the sealed Queen cell was still unopened.. i picked the end of the cell and a nice looking virgin walked of onto the comb so i destroyed the last remaining open Queen cell..in between all of this the bees where going mental..smoke was needed and the bellows on my smoker must have taken 50+ stings..(borrowed time is this Queen) .. a 3rd super added..

Hive (4) Lovely colony...Buckfast 2018 Queen on double brood..no swarm prep and a fourth super added..

Hive (5) 2019 Buckfast on single brood no swarm preps and a fifth super added..

Hive (6)..a lovely hive with a 2019 mongrel Queen.. but they just can not make honey..i am keeping these alive from the soft git inside..this said hive had several open Queen cells ..i destroyed all but one and put the Queen into a nuc on a frame of brood and shook a load of bees into it..(we will see what happens).. :roll: ..

Hive (7) .. a totally mental colony with a bought in 2019 Buckfast Queen..these bees are nuts however no swarm preps from last inspection..all i did today with these is give them a fifth super and close them up..

As you will see my main goal today was hoodwinked from wild card colonies..we will get there in the end but it is pointless making the honey extractor mucky unless you can fill them buckets.. :D
 #7202  by AdamD
 18 May 2020, 13:56
Saturday morning was lovely and I was at the out apiary. As I walked past it, a (chinese copy) Apidea had loads of activity at the entrance and on the brick on top - and there was the virgin queen who was about a week old. She wandered about amongst the bees on the brick; they were lickling her quite actively - then she flew off. Great I thought, she will be mated and laying in a few days. Yesterday evening I opened the little nuc. Just one bee. The rest had gone. :(
I have had this before with these small mini-nucs and wonder whether it would be better to ditch them and go for larger mini-nucs to stop the absconding.
 #7203  by Patrick
 18 May 2020, 15:12
I have also had issues with absconding from mini-nucs, as has my beekeeping and long-standing queen raiser neighbour.

I am currently trialling the Rainbow mininucs. Albeit third of the cost of Apideas, I already have a couple of reservations about them and although the introduced QC’s have emerged, there is little evidence of queens present yet.

However, whilst I spot virgin queens reasonably easily in full hives I do seem to have a mental block on seeing them in mininucs. I know, it’s totally ridiculous 🙄..

I am just completing a batch of 5 frame nucs (another winter job that wasn’t) to use as well.
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