On Sunday, my apiary expanded from one to three colonies. Here they are:
Sunday morning I received a call from Pete. He had about 10 queen swarm cells in his hive. He wanted to keep the Queen, but lose the swarm cells. I took an empty brood box down and we put the 5 frames with the swarm cells into the box with 6 new brood frames. We shook two more frames of bees into the box. The bees were mainly house bees rather than flying bees, so when I moved the brood box back to my “apiary” (of one hive), they didn’t fly the 200m to their old home. Back in the apiary I did a further split to create a nuc (= nucleus, a small hive that only fits 5-6 frames) and manipulated my original hive to provide stores for my two new colonies.
Here’s a Queen cell:
I’m hoping these new colonies will be a full strength for the July nectar flow. Timescales: Queen will hatch in less than 6 days (19th April) and then has up to three weeks to mate and start laying (i.e. by 10th May at the latest). New brood will start hatching out by 31st May.
Here’s my new polystyrene nuc:
If they survive the season I think I owe Pete at least a jar of honey.
Read More
- Hive Two Record Card
- Hive Three Record Card (that’s the new hive, I need to mark the hive for photos)
- Poly Nuc Record Card
- Feeding Bees
- Swarm Management
- Beekeeping Calendar
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