MJBee
Drone Bee
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2008
- Messages
- 1,812
- Reaction score
- 1
- Location
- Dordogne 24360 France
- Hive Type
- Commercial
- Number of Hives
- 16 a mix of Commercial, National, 14 x 12, Dadant and a Warre
After a week of iffy weather today dawned clear and calm so inspection of hives at my out apiary was scheduled. Because of distance and time it has been neglected and 3 colonies and a nuc had swarmed. Half way through another of the Q+ colonies decided to swarm!! Fortunately they settled in a small peach tree and I was able to collect them (my swarm collection box is in the car all the time from April to August) While I was waiting for the stragglers to go in I continued reducing Queen cells down to one good un per colony. In the last "swarmed" colony the sealed cells had been thinned at the tip. I left one beauty and carefully removed another 3 as I was doing so they began to emerge!! PANIC!!
1 cell into a queen clip another into a queen marking tube the last into a "swarmed" colony just before she emerged. The other 2 now fully emerged virgins were run into Q- colonies and left to sort themselves out. Meanwhile the "beauty" in the last colony had also emerged Phew.
A hectic hour but hopefully all will end well, this spell of good weather is due to last a week at least so mating may be achieved.
1 cell into a queen clip another into a queen marking tube the last into a "swarmed" colony just before she emerged. The other 2 now fully emerged virgins were run into Q- colonies and left to sort themselves out. Meanwhile the "beauty" in the last colony had also emerged Phew.
A hectic hour but hopefully all will end well, this spell of good weather is due to last a week at least so mating may be achieved.
