Heather
Queen Bee
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2008
- Messages
- 4,131
- Reaction score
- 128
- Location
- Newick, East Sussex
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 6
Have a lovely colony which finally decided to go into swarm mode.
5 well formed deep queen cells but all capped. I used the newest looking one and did artificial swarm, leaving 1 queen cell and removed the other 4 to my incubator.
Day due to hatch... nothing - waited 24 hrs...nothing. I gave them another 48 hours ..nothing ..so decided to investigate. The beautiful cells didn't even have a larvae in, no royal jelly.. zilch.
Opened the hive with cell in... bees not happy! Need to re-join.
I haven't heard of this before. Why all that work on NOTHING. Just to wind me up??
5 well formed deep queen cells but all capped. I used the newest looking one and did artificial swarm, leaving 1 queen cell and removed the other 4 to my incubator.
Day due to hatch... nothing - waited 24 hrs...nothing. I gave them another 48 hours ..nothing ..so decided to investigate. The beautiful cells didn't even have a larvae in, no royal jelly.. zilch.
Opened the hive with cell in... bees not happy! Need to re-join.
I haven't heard of this before. Why all that work on NOTHING. Just to wind me up??