Part 1: Are An Introduced Queen & A Swarm Related?

I introduce a queen to a colony and a swarm goes over my garden a few hours later.  Are these incidents related?  I don’t know the answer to this question, yet.  I’ll post next week.

The Inspection

I am down to one hive after 2 seasons of weak colonies, wax moths, wasps and lets be honest, some bad beekeeping, so it was with crossed fingers I went to carry out my first inspection of the season.

At first glance all looked good, with bees coming and going … but I could also observe they were not bringing in any/much pollen, which was a worry.

In the hive there were no eggs, larvae or capped brood.  This was a big worry!  No pollen, but plenty of honey stores.  About 6 frames of bees.  I found the marked queen.  Luckily no cells with multiple eggs, which would have been a sign of Laying Workers.

I assume the queen has stopped laying and I assume there isn’t a virgin queen as there is no brood from which a virgin could have been made in the last few weeks.  I assume the Queen is producing enough pheromone to stop bees becoming Laying Workers.

Next Steps

I went online and bought a queen (delivery was going to take about 10 days).

To reduce risk of bees becoming workers, I added a frame of eggs from a friends hive (thanks Carolyn).

Introducing Queen (10 Days Later)

There is some best practice with how to introduce a queen but being (A) not a great beekeeper, (B) time limited (full time job and kids at home under lockdown) and (C) reducing the chance of beekeeper error, I did the minimum.  Doing the minimum does reduce the risk of the bees not accepting her … but I calculated this was a lower risk than me losing or injuring the queen.

So, I killed the current queen, removed the plastic tabs from the end of the queen cage and popped the cage into the hive.

I’ll inspect in 7 to 10 days to see if there are eggs or a dead queen.

The Swarm

So, I did all the above in the morning. Three hours later a large swarm went through our front garden, down the cul de sac, over a few neighbours gardens and then seemed to settle in a hole in a tree (high up).  Luckily the neighbours found the swarm reduced some of the monotony of lockdown and I shouted out to anyone that would listen that “it wasn’t mine” (probably wasn’t mine would have been more accurate).

I don’t think it was mine for the following reasons:

1. Earlier the same day, I had both killed the queen (definitely) and left a queen in a cage which will take a few days to get her out of
2. I presume there wasn’t a virgin queen in my hive (I hope)
3. I think the swarm was too big (about 15,000 bees by my estimate: 30m long swarm x 10m wide x 5m high, with density of 10 bees per cubic metre – has any one got better ideas of how to estimate a flying swarm size?)

However, I’ll find out when I next inspect and you can find out in Part 2.

There was another swarm the next day, that passed 20m from my house. Starting to get excited about the season.  I need more bees, so I’ve ordered some Vita swarm attractant wipes (blog sponsor) and set up a nuc box.

Finally

Hope all going well with the start to your beekeeping seasons.

I also found these little wasp nests in the upstairs window sill.  Spring is in full flow.