Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: gibb on June 14, 2017, 09:21:42 pm
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Had one of my hives that was only using the top entrance on a double deep set-up. It looked like they had possible swarmed and were queen-less. After reversing the deeps and cleaning off any burr comb i did not see any eggs or capped brood but decided to wait another week before requeening just in case I had a new queen that had not settled in yet. After the clean up and reversal the hive was much more active. Should I have just re-queened and not wasted the time?
They had a lot of capped honey and pollen in the hive.
I did not see a queen during my inspection and I did tear apart the complete hive, no storage of bees.
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Sounds like it swarmed alright. Patience is a hard thing to have when you are waiting for a hive to requeen itself (ask me, I know :-[)
Many folks don't want the delay and will use a purchased queen, but at $40 a pop I stopped going that route this year.
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No kidding, I have a queen on hand that I bought for $45 but have another hive that I may need to use her on. Had at least 3 swarms with one for sure with a new queen and one that is in the process of re-queening.
Finally the weather has improved and the bees have settled down.
I had wanted to go to 10 hives but not in a week.