einsteinagogo
Drone Bee
- Joined
- May 7, 2013
- Messages
- 1,251
- Reaction score
- 51
- Location
- Yorkshire Wolds
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- enough (but all insured!)
I've now collected two casts from my colony, both have been hived, one cast in a 6 frame nuc, and one in a national hive.
Although both casts looked large clumps on the tree, the first cast originally covered two frames of bees, but some or all absconded over night, leaving me with a small handful of bees, less than 1/2 of a frame. A queen excluder was left under the nuc, but clearly didn't make any difference.
This was on Sunday, as the cast was from my hive, I started to feed 1:1 syrup I've checked on how they are doing, and I've noticed they are very slow, and drones around are dead, and it looks to me like they are starving, which I thought they were supposed to take honey with them for 3/4 days, and start drawing comb.
I looked tonight, and they have started to draw a frame, not complete, and the tail tale signs of bees heads in comb looking for food, there are some feeding, from rapid feeder, I could not see a queen, and with so few bees, I could have counted them all.
So, options, clearly, this is not going to grow into any sort of colony, so what to do with bees?
I never housed or caught swarms before, so haven't found any references to what to do with left over bees after absconded.
Cast No.2 seems present in larger numbers, just checked quickly, but this does not seem to add to much either.
Am I wasting my time here, and better spent doing something else, like checking my bigger colonies! (and keeping on top of them sods!).
So what to do with bees with no queen?
Although both casts looked large clumps on the tree, the first cast originally covered two frames of bees, but some or all absconded over night, leaving me with a small handful of bees, less than 1/2 of a frame. A queen excluder was left under the nuc, but clearly didn't make any difference.
This was on Sunday, as the cast was from my hive, I started to feed 1:1 syrup I've checked on how they are doing, and I've noticed they are very slow, and drones around are dead, and it looks to me like they are starving, which I thought they were supposed to take honey with them for 3/4 days, and start drawing comb.
I looked tonight, and they have started to draw a frame, not complete, and the tail tale signs of bees heads in comb looking for food, there are some feeding, from rapid feeder, I could not see a queen, and with so few bees, I could have counted them all.
So, options, clearly, this is not going to grow into any sort of colony, so what to do with bees?
I never housed or caught swarms before, so haven't found any references to what to do with left over bees after absconded.
Cast No.2 seems present in larger numbers, just checked quickly, but this does not seem to add to much either.
Am I wasting my time here, and better spent doing something else, like checking my bigger colonies! (and keeping on top of them sods!).
So what to do with bees with no queen?
