taff..
Field Bee
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 796
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- By that there Forest
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 4
Hi, my colonies are in an orchard, not just a field with a couple of apple trees, but a propper huge agricultural orchard, and there are no neighbours within about half a mile of the colonies.
four weeks ago, I invited a mate around to handle bees for the first time, he's done the courses and bought the kit over the last 3 years and is now wanting his own bees. as it turned out, this colony decided that this was the week that they'd show their agression, great for hammering home the point that bees can be 'orrible to the noob
strike one!!
a week later and the agression is the same, that's strike two and I made a call to source a new (local) queen, 'I should have one ready in a fortnight' was the answer so fast forward to today....
this afternoon my plan was to move the brood box 20 yards away from the hive, split it into 3 boxes, find the queen and leave her in one of the nucs with a couple of frames 'just in case', and that went very well, I found the queen on my first pass but there were many casulties leaving their stings all over my beesuit
tomorrow I'll collect the new queen, I'll introduce her in a cage that she cannot be released from, then after a few days I'll adjust the cage so that she can be released provided that the bees are not still being agressive towards her.
the slight problem is....I found 5 charged queen cups, I didn't have the kit to do an AS (I had nuc boxes but no frames), so knocked the cells down. on reflection I'm thinking what was the point of doing that? they are now Q- so will be building more anyway, but there again I dont want another Q from this breed line!! hey ho, it may have been a mistake but I'll learn from it if it is.
now I'm trying to figure out in my own head what are the bees likely to do next? they have started down the route of swarming, I've removed their queen and will give them a new one tomorrow. will they still want to swarm? are they likely to take my new queen, thank me very much and bugger off over the horizon with her? or have I just confused things so much that they'll accept the new queen and live happily ever after
Ohh, confused
four weeks ago, I invited a mate around to handle bees for the first time, he's done the courses and bought the kit over the last 3 years and is now wanting his own bees. as it turned out, this colony decided that this was the week that they'd show their agression, great for hammering home the point that bees can be 'orrible to the noob
strike one!!
a week later and the agression is the same, that's strike two and I made a call to source a new (local) queen, 'I should have one ready in a fortnight' was the answer so fast forward to today....
this afternoon my plan was to move the brood box 20 yards away from the hive, split it into 3 boxes, find the queen and leave her in one of the nucs with a couple of frames 'just in case', and that went very well, I found the queen on my first pass but there were many casulties leaving their stings all over my beesuit
tomorrow I'll collect the new queen, I'll introduce her in a cage that she cannot be released from, then after a few days I'll adjust the cage so that she can be released provided that the bees are not still being agressive towards her.
the slight problem is....I found 5 charged queen cups, I didn't have the kit to do an AS (I had nuc boxes but no frames), so knocked the cells down. on reflection I'm thinking what was the point of doing that? they are now Q- so will be building more anyway, but there again I dont want another Q from this breed line!! hey ho, it may have been a mistake but I'll learn from it if it is.
now I'm trying to figure out in my own head what are the bees likely to do next? they have started down the route of swarming, I've removed their queen and will give them a new one tomorrow. will they still want to swarm? are they likely to take my new queen, thank me very much and bugger off over the horizon with her? or have I just confused things so much that they'll accept the new queen and live happily ever after
Ohh, confused