Re-queened a small swarm on Sunday. Today early went to check on her and pull the cage out of the hive. She is still in there! They did not even try to release her. Pulled the candy out, blew the attendants out (half dead, sprayed water on her (very antsy) and placed the cage in the entrance. The bees would just walk around on the cage, never trying to bite it or her.
This is my first bees...small swarm that came out of a bee tree. They have not been aggressive to me or DH. When I pulled the lid this morning, I saw only one bee. Heart sank. The next thing that I knew the inter 5 frames just blossomed with bees LOL...a little frightening and delightful at the same time. Went back this afternoon and she is out of her cage..I hope that she stayed. Are ferrel bees laid back?
Teresa
Small swarms may be an indication of an "after-swarm", that contains a virgin queen(s). So to requeen this swarm, you could of easily missed removing their own queen or queens. Virgin queens in swarms can be hard to find, especially when they do "walkabouts" in the hive and are not dedicated to being on brood comb. A virgin usually is on the side wall. bottom, etc.
The fact they did not kill the queen or have a death grip on the cage is actually a good sign. That is not to say they need a queen, just that they at least did not kill her. She was probably accepted, as most queenless hives will accept a queen even if she is "run in the door".
Congratulations on your first bees.
I had the exact same thing happen with two queens this week. The queens were put in a queenless hive and a nuc I built from splitting another hive. I put the queens in last Sunday and yesterday I checked and the attendants were all dead but the queens were still in the cage. None of the candy had been eaten. I released them and they went right down the frame. Where did you get your queens?
terrex, did you requeen for fear of AHB?
check again in a few days and look for eggs. don't worry about finding her if you don't see her right away. just find the eggs.
I re queened because I was pretty sure ( I know, not good enough) that the virgin queen(s) were missed. This was the second swarm from a big dead tree. There are no branches on the honey tree, but there is all of this orange golden "goop" coming out of the hole. The man that has this tree said that bees have been it forever, but that they swarm a lot. The entrance is very high up on this tree. This second swarm for this year was just 6 days from the first swarm. He said that swarm was huge. They just drop down from the honey tree to this little landscape tree by his house...next to the back door. The guy that was trying to catch this second swarm , it was his first one to catch. I would not have done it the way he did. But everyone is different. He just back the truck up to the swarm, opened the box and pulled on the branch they were on. He got one bounce. Then he jumped down and was trying to move the truck will all of the bees flying. I looked up and they were going back to the branch. Could have been because the queen was still there or at least her scent. If I get the chance to catch one, I hope to be able to cut the limb and lower them to the box and shake them. Then I will walk away and let the bees settle to where the queen is...hopefully that will be in the box.
This same guy got the queen from a bee keeper in GA. Don't know who, which bothers me a little, but beggers can't be choosy right now. Nothing written on the box that she came in, but that she was Italian. I don't even know if she was treated with chemicals or not...I am really wanting to go all natural. When I released her, I looked at her and she is not marked. Wish I had known that so that I could have done it. Since this is my first hive, it would have made it easy for me to find her in the future...that is if she is still there. The hive today looks very busy. I guess I was just thinking that the bees would be more protective of the hive than they are. Still I need to be sure not to relax too much...
Teresa
A swarm without a queen will just drift off and leave. I doubt that the swarm was queenless. A queenless swarm doesn't stay together long.