Over the last few months, we have only sighted one of the queens and just the once. Despite my wife’s ability to spot queens on our training, she has not been able to see the queen in the poly hive. if you can’t see them you can’t mark them.
Incidentally, many books and articles on beekeeping suggest that the second year is the most difficult, we agree. The first year with a new queen the colony has very little need to swarm, as the colony is focussed on building up and laying in store for the coming winter.
However, the second year is a milestone. With your help, the bees should have survived the winter and the queen will start laying in early spring to build the size of the colony for the honey flow.
A good queen will start laying and working on 21 days, in ideal conditions, new bees will emerge. Because of the way the queen will lay the bees will emerge at differing times ensuring a steady supply of new bees.
Then in early April, the dreaded potential for the bees to swarm becomes the main focus of the beekeeper’s attention. According to the various beekeeping books, this is a natural action for bees to take to ensure the survival of the species.
Incidentally, there are a number of swarm prevention methods, the choice is down to the individual beekeeper. Almost all are a variation on the idea that the bees are split and this tricks them into thinking they have swarmed.
In our humble opinion bees are intelligent and splitting a hive can lead to an inbalance of old and new bees in the split. When the old queen leaves the hive logic would suggest that she takes with her at least 50% of young bees. Why? Because the swarm needs to find a new home and although the bees have taking honey with them they need that for the colony.
Consequently, the hive will need a balance of bees to ensure the hive is able to build once the virgin queen has matted. Old foraging bees will return to the hive they are familiar with and whose location they know. However, new bees are required to take on roles within the hive before they become foragers.
As a result, our intention was to monitor the hive, and as soon as queen cells where evident take them out with brood frames and place in a nuc. The existing hive brood frames will be placed in the centre of the brood box and new waxed frames put either side to make up the number placed in the nuc.
This method requires careful monitoring of the hive and checking for queen cells every 7 days max. We have no idea if this method has a name but it is still a split the only difference is the old queen is still in the hive.
Because of our situation earlier and our monumental mistake in taken down the first queen cells, we nearly killed our colony.
Fortunately, we managed to keep most of our bee in two hives. Our latest challenge has been to find the queens to mark them. A small spot of color on the thorax of the queen makes seeing her easier.
Why bother you may ask? Personally, if you can see the queen you can make an assessment of her size and shape and also how she moves across the frames. The queen we have seen is a good size and shape, indicating that she has the ability to hold a lot of sperm. Also, her robustness may indicate her possible useful life. A calm moving queen often indicates a calm colony; in our limited experience.
Therefore, the queen in the old wooden hive was large and moved unhurriedly across the brood frames. The hive is healthy and has plenty of stores and brood.
In the poly hive, we have yet to see the queen and although she is laying in a good pattern and quantity the bees are not as busy as the other hive.
If we can see them and mark them some rough assessment of their size and shape may be indicative of the future status of the colony. This is all supposition on our part.
The honey flow is starting to tail off now and the extremely hot weather lately has reduced the available pollen based on observation of the returning bees.
As summer gives way to autumn we have to keep vigilant for hornets and wasps. Traps need baiting and monitoring and changing from a carbohydrate base to a protein as the hornets and wasps need change.
Once the honey has been removed we will need to take a count of varroa and take any action as a result.
In our next blog Honey Extraction