The stinky smell of success

[Rodni73]

In mid to late March I realized one of my hives became queenless. I gave them broods & eggs to keep the workers from laying.
Went and got me a new Italian queen with a nice bleu patch on her back. 30 $ was the price and I gladly paid! Installed her on April 7th and they accepted her. She started laying around the 10th and she was laying wall to wall...! Greate! By may 11th the queenless hive that I requeened overtook the other one in population. I added a new medium suppers and inspected to ensure they will not swarm.  On May 27th as I pulled over
from work around 3:00 PM I found my wife sobbing on the deck.. My heart sank and asked her what happened? She pointed to the tall pine tree in
my neighbor's yard! A huge swarm something like three footballs hanging on top of the tree..! I gave her a hug and told her not to feel bad! My neighbor offered me a ladder to go up there and tryto bring it down but I was unable to reach it. Two days latter they were gone... My neighbor too was upset and told me something like there goes my honey and we both laughed...!

A new queen with something like 70 % of the bees went with her.. A nice contribution to the wild bee population in my area.  Now the hive is stressed out with a new virgin queen.. 

[rgy]

you're not alone brother!!   know egg-ZACTLY how you feel, kinda like a swift kick to the boys.

[bee-nuts]

Sorry to hear that.  Did you try to bait them with a Swarm lure.  That would have been my last resort attempt to keep them.  I have had two swarms that I caught, one I think I missed, and one I think I stopped.  Im a bit disappointed because I would have had three powerhouses to collect the blackberry flow, now I just have backfilled brood chambers.  All in all, Im just glad I have healthy bees that swarm instead of CCD or AFB or the like.  Next time you may want to keep a closer eye out for swarm cells.  If you tip up the top brood box and see enough queen cells that there is no point in counting them they are going to swarm. 

The first one I found in this condition I simply made a couple five frame nucs and added frames of foundation and another box hoping to change there mind.  They simply swarmed twice anyway.  The second one Im not sure what happened and is a long story of wasted time and money.  The third one I forced my self to find the queen, and made a nuc with her and moved it five miles.  I Made another nuc to free up some room amd left one queen cell.  Im not sure what will happen with the parent hive yet.  The parent queen nuc I inspected six days later and found three capped queen cells I either missed or ones the made in emergency fashion in a last attempt to swarm.  The queen had shut down laying.  I destroyed the queen cells and left them no way to rear a queen,  I checked the nuc again four days later and the queen was still there and laying again and no sign of queen cups or cells.  So I think I have it figured out in part now.  I love the challenge.  It seems to never get dull but more interesting every time I learn something. 

Good luck with the new virgin.  At least they have enough time to build up properly to survive winter, have a good mother for genetics and you may still get honey yet, It still May, LOL

[alfred]

Watched some of mine fly away last week. Followed them about three block before they got too far ahead to follow. New queen still not laying,cheked today. But I figure that all is good. Last year I caught two of mine in my yard and the next door neighbors. A third I split out before they flew.

[Rodni73]

I ordered a swarm lure from betterbees two weeks ago in preparation for such an event.  However, they do not have them and the order was back logged. I guess I tried everything.. I am not gona feel bad about it.. but man a new crodovan Italian queen that is a good layer is out there now in hollow tree trunk with 60 to 70 % of my beessss. ughhhh it makes me mad  :-x. But again who am I to fight many million years of brutal evolution and natural selection.



-Rodni