BBKA Forum

Have been sent a pic by a family member of a hive of mine (apiary is 1.5 hours away) with a cluster of bees hanging from the bottom of the landing board and front of the hive. I last checked them on Thursday but could not do a full inspection because of the low temps. I did see that the Super was filling up nicely and I was going to add another on Tuesday. I too a peek underneath and couldn’t see any queen cells. I would upload a pic but can’t see how to.

How big a cluster?


Photos are a faff,but;

Go to a free hosting site like postimages.org for example
upload your photo
Copy the link they give you
Back to this website
Click the photo icon
Paste the link between the brackets
Preview to test

Here you go. Let me know if the pic has worked. They all seem to have gone back into the hive last night.



https://postimg.cc/RJmH1JGW

Meant to say. Not a huge cluster but enough to indicate that there might be a queen in the middle of it

Is the queen clipped? If so, my expectation is that they attempted to swarm.
How many frames of brood are there? If the colony has maintained more than, say, 6 or 7 frames of brood for a little while, then there won't be much space for the bees with one super on.

Note: It would be good if people put their location in the forum as it enables others to better offer advice as the weather changes considerable around the country. Users can go into their Account Settings/Profile/Edit Profile/Location; and then enter a county or area.

Yes 8 brood frames and one super. The queen wasn’t clipped. The colony was a swarm from last year.

It's said that 1 frame of brood results in 3 frames of bees - so that could mean that the colony is very full of bees.
I have seen a congested nuc swarm leaving no queencells - they just got fed up with a lack of space, I guess!

gwt_uk wrote: ↑

17 May 2021, 07:44

Meant to say. Not a huge cluster but enough to indicate that there might be a queen in the middle of it

Not neccesarily a queen in the cluster(s)
Ive had two swarm attempts so far this month because I was too scared about the weather to get proactive when I should have done..
Both times they changed their minds(weather?),went back inside but left fragmented clumps all around the hive- similar to your photo.

Only got the link btw.

Adam - Ive provided some very honest views about my association in the past- if I disclosed my locale I would definitely not be getting a Christmas card.


Theres enough metadata in our digital photos to provide coordinates anyway.....

Is your name Prince Harry?