Yesterday, I saw a bunch of bees clustering on the ground below the entrance of one of my hives, and when I started to separate them, I realized they were balling a queen (more likely just finishing up). Then I came back a couple of minutes later and I I saw a virgin queen strolling around a few inches away acting like she didn?t know what to do. I reckoned she was virgin because the other bees were indifferent to her. I put out my hand, she crawled up, I held my hand to the entrance and she just walked right in. It was a very interesting thing to see.
By the way, the ground is concrete so it was easy to see all this. My assumption that there was a supercedure and that was one of the queens that resulted. I?m in NY and we still get some cold nights and I haven?t opened my hives yet to inspect. I don?t want to break the propolis seals yet. I figure I have some time before I need to go in and look see.
Just make sure they have plenty of food. If they are active enough to be out and about and doing the raising of anything, they are into the resources. Early spring is when people lose hives because they don't think the bees are doing anything yet and by the time they realize what's happening, the bees are starving.
I live in a colder climate as well. Mine will fly any sunny day that it gets 40ish. Brood to follow as soon.
Quote from: 2Sox on April 07, 2023, 04:57:52 PM
. I?m in NY and we still get some cold nights and I haven?t opened my hives yet to inspect. I don?t want to break the propolis seals yet. I figure I have some time before I need to go in and look see.
I would actually suggest getting into them on the next nice day. Although we have been having cold night the bees have been building up strong. I have heard of beekeepers in Newburgh area seeing swarm cell being started. I'm up in the Catskills and my bees appear to only be a couple weeks from starting swarm preparations. The maple flow here has been really good this year and they are booming. I would not worry about breaking the propolis seals, their population is strong enough to keep the brood warm during the night.
Hopefully there's plenty of drones in southern NY. In the Adirondacks we still have some snow on the ground. No drone brood yet but colonies look great so far this year.
I can't imagine a problem getting into a hive in Queens this time of year.