Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: Jen on April 01, 2014, 04:12:04 pm
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I have a feeling I'm loosing my mother hive! Third swarm as we speak, Heavy Siiigh
Swarm in full swing
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Update: 20 minutes later, swarm came back to hive, some foragers are bringing in pollen
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I think I know where the queen is :)
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What The H E Double Hockey Sticks Was That All About?
Should I try and retrieve the queen?
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Jen, have you provided your colonies with plenty of space to store nectar, laying eggs at the same time, all the bees rest inside the hive without having to beard outside. how many queen cells did you allowed to mature, and are you certain you seen them all. swarm prevention and you will never entirely eliminated, but you can certainly limited, that has not happened here. storage space for incoming nectar, brood rearing space. right now your parents colony is in the process of destroying itself. issuing one after swarm after another. cutting of the total colony strength down to almost nonsurvival levels. examine your brood chambers, actually still there after all these swarms.
other to expect honey I did any of these colonies would be somewhat miraculous. I would stock up on sugar now so it's available when you need it. I have said all of them that beekeeping is not very complicated, you have a number of criteria that must be met to discourage swarming, seriously need to review that. goodness sakes examine those brood chambers for more queen cells
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Right now, all's I want to know is why did the swarm hit the sky and then turn right back around and go back into the hive. It's my understanding that the queen didn't leave with them, so they came back. I don't know if they came back to stay, or if they came back to get her to leave again with them.
In this pic, these are the two clusters that still remain outside of the hive, they've been there for a couple of hours now. It's a cold day today.
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Iddee gave me permission (snork) to get into my hives on Friday, that will be almost three weeks since the first swarm. I'll have more info then.
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Queen didn't accompany the bees, but check the grass in front the hive she may only have made it off the bottom board. it is more than apparent the colonies still is in swarm mode.
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I should've read I think you'll find a queen and one of them clusters
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In my last pic, you can see that the left over bees that wouldn't go back into the hive... some are under the bottom board, and some are on the ground resting on a railroad tie and a board. I got the ones up off of the railroad tie and a good amount out from under the bottom board. They are in a big kitchen bowl, haven't gone thru them yet to see if she's in there.
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Was it a swarm or a mating flight???
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Does a mating flight involve say.... 2,000+ bees in the air? hovering the cedar trees and landing on the bank?
Ya know? I've never seen a mating flight?
Were you able to take a close look at the first three pics of this thread?
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Nope, on the wireless/laptop, too slow. I'll go up to the main comp in a bit and have a look.
About half the time mating flights are a few moments of mass confusion... other times I notice nothing whatsoever. I'll check out the pics better shortly.
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K Thanks :)
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Jen, one thing that I didn't notice anyone mentioning in all your swarm posts is genetics. The propensity to swarm is an inherited trait. All bees swarm, but certain breeds are much more prone to it. If you are having swarm troubles year after year, in spite of swarm prevention measures, it might be time to try queens from another source.
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Hi there pistol, funny you mention that, cause this hive swarmed three times last year, I just didn't know how to handle to then. It has crossed my mind recently to get some other queens.
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thank you for getting to that pistolpete, I was going to but you beat me to it. I don't think there's any doubt that Jen's bees are inclined to swarm. that is purely genetic, and she may want to consider another queen, different stock.
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right now my thinking is what's left of the parents hive, and are the other colonies strong enough to forage enough to feed themselves, probably the primary swarm, but the after swarms need close attention
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I do know that there is barely any pollen coming in. I'm tempted to take the syrup off and make up a batch of winter patties for them. We're back to cold winter weather, 40/50 days, 30's night.
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That does seem a bit excessive, though not exceptionally so. I usually see mating flight frenzies from nuc's rather than hives so I cant give a definitive answer. Lets HOPE it was a mating flight.
I have considered telling her to get another queen but she seems quite enamored of the one.. (or more now) that she has, otherwise I would certainly agree with re queening from good stock.
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Well if each spring it's gonna be like this, and I'm not wanting a large apiary, I would consider re-queening!
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A fresh queen greatly reduces swarming tendencies. With only a couple of hives you could be pretty choosy about what queens you decided to go with. Wanting only two hives it wouldn't hurt you at all to put a new queen in those hives about every other year. The good thing about re queening is that if you don't like a queen, you can try again with a different line until you find a geneitc line you fall in love with.
granted... you SHOULD be good to go for this year, but with those bees I am not going to stick my neck out making predictions!!!
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Our friend is over visiting right now, he's the one who has one hive that he started from my last swarm last spring. He said that they wouldn't be swarming if I wasn't bothering them so much. I wasn't paying that much attention to them and was glad to see when they came out of hybernation. Gave them some winter patties once a week because they were very busy. Then about a month ago did a hive inspection, moved some frames around to give them some room. Switched out some frames from plastic to wood/wax.
The next day, they swarmed. And you guys know the story from then on.
Does this seem like too much bothering? considering that many of you check your hives once a week?
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found a vid that the fellow claims is a mating flight. Look familiar???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11fqxVLctNo
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OMG !! That is EXACTLY how it happened!!!! My incident took longer tho, they swirled in the sky and near the bank, many landing on the ground but not grouping up at all. Then, in less than 5 minutes they gathered back at the hive. And while mother hive was at it's peek, daughter hive next door look like it was going to swarm as well.
I could cry
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what your gentleman friend is referring to is called absconding, for example they will do that when you're infested too badly with varroa, or small hive Beatles.. you didn't bother them too much.
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I really don't see how inspections every week or so would make them swarm. It seems to me they forget all about it the minute the smoke clears. My first year I was in my hive all the time, inspecting once a week and peeking under the lid almost every day. That hive produced around 250 lbs of honey (150 for me) and never even thought about swarming. They were too busy pulling 50 frames of comb I guess.
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;D
From about Mid April to the end of June I inspect every week. I don't necessarily pull the hive down to its roots but I am on the lookout for cells and for congestion.
Between early spring management and the last of the late spring early summer splits My bees would all have vanished if bothering them was an issue. I have read where it takes them three days to recover from an inspection.. I will have to disagree with that. Even pulling boxes apart frame by frame doesn't seem to take them long to reorganize. Certainly they are back on track well before the next morning.
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Re: yesterday swarm/mating thing. I figured it out! It was April Fools Day!
They boiled out, then came back to the hive right in front of me "KIDDING! HAHA! MAKE YA PUT YOUR JEANS ON, HAHA!"
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If I didn't love em so much I'd put them in lockdown ;) 8)
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After viewing the video on this thread about mating flights looking much like swarming, this guy said that this event was the third day in a row that his hive had done this exact same 'ritual' if you will.
Is it possible for a queen get fully mated in one day?
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Update from yesterdays swarm/mating incident. Just came in from watching the hive for a minute or two. Found a dead queen in front of the mother hive, and several drones hanging out on the porch.
I'm thinking that there was a queen fight yesterday or today, and the drones are waiting on the remaining queen to get her butt in gear.
What do you think?
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Once a queen get mated and is laying, what does she eat? or does she get fed?
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I would have to guess thats what happened.
Every time she goes out to mate may not be a dramatic event like you saw yesterday. She will possibly take several mating flights, maybe only two or three. The average number of drones quens mate with vary from two or three to nearly 40, with the average being 12 times.
As far as I know the queen is fed royal Jelly from nurse bees under normal circumstances.
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Good Gravy! I sure have A LOT of respect for her putting up with all those randy boys!
But then again, she doesn't have to deal with them for the rest of her life so I guess that makes a pretty good balance :D
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don't you have at least a little sympathy for the boys though?
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barry is referring to the fact that drones die within hours of mating.
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Not really ;) I'm more amused by the females that have their spent lovers for dinner ;)
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and it's not so much the fact that they die within hours of mating, is the reason why they died =-O
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