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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #12851  by JoJo36
 17 Jun 2022, 05:06
Well Alfred
I hope you find a way of finding out where your gear has gone and more importantly who nicked it??!!
By now I expect your devising your own plan by securing the 'crime scene' with 'special tape' and putting up trip wires?!
I sincerely hope your sleep has at least slightly improved in the last couple of days and I find that a swig of 'piriton' syrup can help too??!! :)
 #12853  by Alfred
 18 Jun 2022, 18:53
Thanks guys
Not the first and I doubt it will be the last

On a lighter note I had another one of my cut outs that I don't do.Ever.
Three calls on Friday,two while at work ( an elderly chap with bees in his garden office,the second from the affiliate who had no-one to do a garden swarm.
Couldn't attend either,but fortuitously so.
The last one was at 1800 and it was an actual cut out that I gave in to .
Bees in a porch.
The guy said it was rotten and had to come down,so I pulled off the end fasia couldn't see much and told him no.
He put on the Sad Sam so I pulled down the soffit with one finger.
Looks like it's a very rare primary swarm with a 4"comb in less than a day.
Despite the heat they settled reasonably quickly.Green correx absolutely stuffed.Left it on the roof overnight
Have to brave the rain now to get the box up to the apairy and see who is the sacrificial combining candidate as I have more waste of space colonies than hives now.
I think it will be the postbox extraction as they aren't making much effort.
 #12854  by JoJo36
 18 Jun 2022, 19:46
It looks like the swarm you collected was worth it and may end up the best one in the apiary given time?!
Oh dear, looks like queen in the postbox hive has been allocated an orange boiler suit and is officially on 'death row':(
 #12855  by Alfred
 19 Jun 2022, 07:25
It was a brutal extraction Jo ,so she may have been damaged,but I don't even think she was in the postbox- I'm thinking they got left behind when the swarm found a better site.
 #12856  by JoJo36
 19 Jun 2022, 14:14
Funnily enough, the swarm we collected from next door was shoved into my existing hive I thought it came from and I'm pretty sure the swarming queen murdered the existing newly emerged one as there is only one there now??!! :)
All's well that ends well and I've a new yellow painted one now (roughly I might add)!!
I tried to remark one of my last years queen and the paint came out and managed to coat the whole queen in white paint!! The workers did their best to clean her but she's still very noticeable and alive so another disaster avoided! :)
 #12860  by NigelP
 20 Jun 2022, 17:00
If I had to make a bet on which of my current hives was least likely to attempt to swarm it would be a 2021 F1 queen that swarmed on April 20th this year that I rescued from the ground with bees.
She has gone from a nuc to fill a double brood and I took a super of honey off her last week.

But I would have lost my bet.
Today, exactly 2 months to the day after their last attempt they tried to swarm again. Picked queen up off the ground and caged her until they were all back home then Snelgrove method II. She is a cracking queen in terms of brood etc so loath to lose her, but I don't thing we will take her genetics any further.

Another hive which is queenless produced the largest number of queen cells I have ever see on frames, must have been over 20 on some of them. I suspect this also attempted to swarm and queen got lost on ground when I wasn't around to witness it.
 #12861  by JoJo36
 21 Jun 2022, 05:22
Blimey!!
Thats unreal, going from a nuc to a double brood & producing a super of honey too!!
Perhaps a double brood is just not enough for this 'super duper' queen and she needs 3 brood boxes instead?!
Good job you clipped her?! I've still not attempted it especially after painting ,y last years queen nearly all white accidentally!! I've not used my special plunger yet!!
 #12862  by Alfred
 21 Jun 2022, 11:02
Never can tell with bees!
I was going to tip out the postbox swarm on Sunday.
One seam only and had they put two tiny lobes of comb.
But there was capped brood.
Can't wait for them any longer to they will now go into a failed AS.
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