I purchased a NWC queen out of California. When it arrived I marked it with hot pink. I placed it into a week hive on June 9th. I opened the hive about 10 days later to make sure she was laying. I saw eggs so I started to put the hive back together and all of the sudden the queen climbs onto of the frame bar and flies off. I check the hive again the next day and the day after that hoping that she would come back. No such luck. Well today I open up my strong hive to inspect it and there she is laying in this hive. The queen from this hive was really nice and was marked green. I assume that she was killed by the NWC queen, but I'm worried because my understanding is that AHB take over hives in this manor? I have been having such strange things happen in my second year that it makes me lack any confidence in my bee keeping skills
snowmix, what I think you are talking about is an AHB swarm usurping an EHB colony. That normally happens when a swarm of bees invade (to a degree) an established colony. I don't think the NWC necessarily intended to take over your other colony but rather got lost, found a colony, and made it her new home. Did you look closely to see if per chance the original queen might still be there? Have the bees in the pink queen's original colony started making emergency queen cells?
As for your beekeeping skills...it's only your second year, don't put yourself down. Even when you grow old and weary and finally lay your hive tool down there will have been things that you still don't know and did not learn about. You're doing good, if you keep at it, one day new beeks will come to you for advice. Enjoy the journey.
Ed
Hang in there snow, this is my second year as well. As much time as I have put into learning about beekeeping, sometimes I can't tell you if I'm doing good or not. I still enjoy the heck out of it. There will be ups and downs, good days and bad.
Snow,
As Ed said, the only way that queen took over that hive without a large swarm was that they had lost their queen and they were ready to accept her.
The field bees would kill her if they had a good queen. I just had a swarm try to usurp a very small hive and the old queen won the battle. I know this because she was marked and the swarm queen was not.
Jim
Jim, a while back (during our flow) I had a weird thing happen. I had walked down to my hives to give them my "before going to work glance" and was standing there when suddenly some bees started issuing from a hive. This hive was the first colony I started with, it was just a couple of frames of bees with some resources when I got it ($1 per frame from my mentor's best friend, they wanted me to have bees over the winter to "get used to"). That colony built up to being a strong hive...always a heavy population but little honey made, just enough for them. Beside them was a colony that made #100 last year and was a cutout the year before...nice colony.
Anyhow, the bee-maker colony issued a small swarm (maybe a double handful of bees) that swirled around for a few minutes, never flying very far and basically circling the east end (where the mother hive was located) of my row of hives. As I watched the small swarm started tightening up until it started landing on the honey-maker that was right beside the bee-maker colony. The bees landed and went inside without much hooplah at all. Now, after you mentioned the swarm moving into your active hive I'm worried their may have been a queen in the swarm that may have usurped the reigning queen of that hive...I was planning on trying to make some queens off that queen. Now, I'm a bit worried. None of my queens are marked so I'm wonderng if it's a crapshoot if I make queens from that hive now.... :(
Ed
Ed,
I think you are right, it a crapshoot as to who wins. The instructor at the last bee college was the first to report usurping in Italian's and saw it happening. He marked the swarming queen. The reining queen in the hive was not marked. Three days later he found the unmarked queen dead in front of the hive.
I was not expecting to find the marked queen in this hive.
This hive is now in my observation hive and is doing very well
Jim
You are in Denver, unless you are buying queens from Africanized areas, you shouldn't have any AHB. If they are not nice, requeen them.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrequeeninghot.htm (http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrequeeninghot.htm)