Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: LazyBkpr on May 22, 2023, 11:58:06 pm
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Went through hives a couple days ago, found queen cell in three of them. I feel like it is kind of early for this area, but apparently the bees didn't.... I split the hives, putting queen cells in each of the splits. Bees are active on all of them,. so we will see how it goes. Anyone else have bees getting ready to swarm???
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I split one of my hives on April 18 during a State Inspection of my hives. I brought it home to southwest Illinois and ended up moving that split to west Tennessee on May 3. That was an interesting task for me. First time I moved a hive a long distance. This is an experiment to see how much the bees need me versus how much I think the bees need me. I did another split yesterday. During my inspection, I found several Q cells in one of the hives. I ended up pulling 3 frames, one with about 4 QCs and placing them in a Nuc box, and took them home, which is about 19 miles from my apiary. I plan on moving that hive back to the yard when it gets going.
Last year I am pretty sure I had all 6 of my hives swarm. I was not very diligent about inspections and reaction to what was happening in the hive. I made two unsuccessful, but rather comical, attempts to collect swarms that were happening when I arrived at the apiary. It is disheartening to see them leave. All of my hives ex. 1 survived the winter and are all doing great this year. So, with the 2 splits I'm now at 7 hives.
PappyRick
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This is an experiment to see how much the bees need me versus how much I think the bees need me.
PappyRick
Well said PappyRick!
Good to hear from you too!
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Went through hives a couple days ago, found queen cell in three of them. I feel like it is kind of early for this area, but apparently the bees didn't.... I split the hives, putting queen cells in each of the splits. Bees are active on all of them,. so we will see how it goes. Anyone else have bees getting ready to swarm???
My hives are about done swarming actually. Swarm season will last until deep into the summer here, but all my bees have basically swarmed themselves out, so unless I happen to catch someone else's bees, my swarm catching is all over already. I split one hive very early this spring because they were building up so quick. I had 3 of my 5 hives swarm last month, and one of those basically swarmed itself to death.
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I had a hive do that when I was dealing with mother in law and didn;t have time to fuss with them. It swarmed like three times in a matter of days, and when i did get time, there was no queen and only a handful of bees left...