Saturday 24 May 2014

One bee keepers loss.....

Is there ever a good time for a swarm of bees to arrive?

That's probably a rhetorical question....but this week would rank of one of the most badly timed weeks for honey bee swarming.  Part way through the verifying of some 16,000 postal votes, after some particularly late nights, early starts and highly frustrating wrestling with remote access to spreadsheets that should have worked but didn't...I was hardly in a great frame of mind to receive a text asking if I could offer a large swarm a new home....

However; one bee keepers loss is another's gain,   never look a gift bee in the mandible and all those other maxims.  I said yes.

So it was that I came to be bee suited and booted on a Monday evening brushing bees out of a box into a spare hive...if in doubt turn the box upside down and shake'em in!



Stand back and admire them settling......


A few seemed to be a bit confused... or a bit disorientated from being rudely shaken and finished up underneath the hive.  It wouldn't be a worry ...unless the queen had ended up under there by mistake in which case come morning there would have been a big lump of bees hanging underneath the hive as everyone who had been shaken inside would have gradually realised she was outside and walked outside to huddle next to her and keep her warm...



Thank fully that didnt seem to be be the case and as I walked away all the stragglers and disorientated ones seemed to be walking steadily in the direction of the front door....


I've left them alone all week, but today was the day to investigate just how happy they were with their new home...

Early signs were encouraging....

A near full brood box of bees....


They were VERY docile and were busy "stringing" - this is when they link together to form chains hanging down from the frames and use their mandibles to manipulate the wax being exuded from their wax producing glands... gradually building up the hexagons of beeswax to make a nest for the queen to start laying in...


Look ....you can see right down to the shiny, new and clean bottom of the hive...


But the most important question to answer today is is there a queen? 

Soon enough I found evidence of her being there...


There were three whole frames of beautiful new clean wax cells...all with a tiny egg laid right at the bottom....
Wanna closer look?

All in all there were three frames of freshly laid eggs....that's c. 6,000 eggs laid in just over 4 days....this could be the start of a vigorously prolific colony....so where is she?

Suddenly in the mass of stringing bees there was a different shaped abdomen....

 

And then all the workers cleared and I got the opportunity for a great shot of her....



and a sudden burst of sunshine meant I over exposed the shot.  But anyway here she is in all her glory.

Now I need to decide if I'm going to re start my naming of queens......Anyone know any queens beginning with G?

1 comment:

  1. Excellent Helen, another hive - yey!!! So many great photo's - think i need to bring my tent and camp in the garden - you know just to get those important shots!!!! lol All that stringing!!!! :)

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