Have an interesting situation. We bought a nuc in late April and it did too well- built up and swarmed last Friday. Luckily they landed on plum tree in back yard and we captured swarm and installed in new single hive box. We put top feeder on and have been feeding them 1:1 sugar water which they take readily (two gallons consumed so far.
The situation is that there seems to be constant traffic of bees back and forth between the new hive box (with captured swarm) and the original hive box (double deep hive with super on top) which still contains lots of bees and a good amount of capped and uncapped honey and capped brood and larvae (probably eggs too)
At this point i can't tell who is robbing who. The new hive box is about 60 feet away from original hive boxes. There seems to be no fighting at either hive entrance with bees freely entering and leaving each hive and flying to the other. Perhaps some of the swarm is going back to feed on the honey they left? I don't have option of moving hives much farther apart. Should I just let nature takes its course and see if either they eventually quit going back and forth between hives?
thanks in advance for advice
You may want to reduce the entrance. May be a little robbing going on.
Are they fighting at the new hive entrance? doak
no fighting at all; it is like they are still acting as all belonging to same hive; the original hive does seem to have a little more activity at hive entrance with more bees fanning etc; but amazing thing is that id say about one third of total flight activity from both hives (original and swarm hive) seems to be traffic going directly back and forth from hive to hive
thanks
I think as long as the new hive queen is laying fine, you'll eventually get new daughters that see the new hive as home. The flights back-n-forth will diminish eventually. As mentioned, I'd reduce on the new hive, make sure they're fed and let creation take it's course.
Blessings,
John Schwartz
thanks to both; we are pretty new to beekeeping (second year) and this was our first swarm; pretty exciting; seems like it was big swarm
(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/62/swarm1.th.jpg) (http://img190.imageshack.us/i/swarm1.jpg/)
Quote from: terencius on June 17, 2009, 11:20:31 PM
thanks to both; we are pretty new to beekeeping (second year) and this was our first swarm; pretty exciting; seems like it was big swarm
You're welcome! If you can, please update your location information in your profile -- this will help folks help you better with questions as beekeeping can be quite different from region to region. :)
From Asheville NC USA here; just joined forum and appreciate the help
Quote from: terencius on June 17, 2009, 11:36:25 PM
From Asheville NC USA here; just joined forum and appreciate the help
Welcome aboard :bee: