eggs in super, orientation cluster/swarm...

[Dane Bramage]

Greetings fellow beeks,

Record heat out here on the west coast.  I think the bees like it.  :-D

I'm putting on 2nd supers on many (about 1/2) of the hives here.  Seems there is a decent flow going on, blooms just everywhere one looks.  I'm capturing mostly (guessing) apple (pale yellow) and ornamental (black) pollen.  Many of the first supers are getting heavy with a good 80% nectar load, even some beginning to be capped.  High time for that 2nd super! 

I noticed I had eggs in one of the supers.  I can't use queen-excluders on these particular hives as they are also doing pollen collection (top-mount, Sundance II).  I do use excluders on my other hives and they work fine - no problems (e.g. diminished harvests) to report.  I'd rather not have brood in my supers but.. not all that worried about it.  I do prefer to add aditional supers in under, move the filled ones up, however.  My first question is: what will happen with these eggs now that they are one additional super away from the top brood chamber? 

My second question has to do with an interesting swarm/cluster that has decided to hang out where a group of 5 hives used to be.  These were the last hives I needed to relocate for the season, so they had been there some time and then were moved a mere 100 yards or so (& down a hill) away.  There was an obvious amount of activity as the foragers returned to their old locale looking for home.  There were also a few that stayed behind on the clip pallet floors as I transition to SBBs during the move process.  All of these have now coalesced into a decent sized cluster.  It's certainly queen-less and I can't seem to get it into my swarm trap/hive (I moved it very close tonight so, we'll see).   So - what to do, if anything, with these stragglers?

Cheers,
Dane

[Brian D. Bray]

Greetings fellow beeks,

Record heat out here on the west coast.  I think the bees like it.  :-D

Yeah, 3 days of sunshine with temps in the 80's are forecast.  For Washington and Oregon, that's a heat wave.

I'm putting on 2nd supers on many (about 1/2) of the hives here.  Seems there is a decent flow going on, blooms just everywhere one looks.  I'm capturing mostly (guessing) apple (pale yellow) and ornamental (black) pollen.  Many of the first supers are getting heavy with a good 80% nectar load, even some beginning to be capped.  High time for that 2nd super! 

I noticed I had eggs in one of the supers.  I can't use queen-excluders on these particular hives as they are also doing pollen collection (top-mount, Sundance II).  I do use excluders on my other hives and they work fine - no problems (e.g. diminished harvests) to report.  I'd rather not have brood in my supers but.. not all that worried about it.  I do prefer to add aditional supers in under, move the filled ones up, however.  My first question is: what will happen with these eggs now that they are one additional super away from the top brood chamber? 

If the frames are the same size as the brood chamber steal the storage combs from the sides of the brood box and move the frames down.  If not let them hatch and backfill before removing that super.  Make it the last one you remove this fall.  Remember, more bees means bigger harvest don't knock the serendipity.

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My second question has to do with an interesting swarm/cluster that has decided to hang out where a group of 5 hives used to be.  These were the last hives I needed to relocate for the season, so they had been there some time and then were moved a mere 100 yards or so (& down a hill) away.  There was an obvious amount of activity as the foragers returned to their old locale looking for home.  There were also a few that stayed behind on the clip pallet floors as I transition to SBBs during the move process.  All of these have now coalesced into a decent sized cluster.  It's certainly queen-less and I can't seem to get it into my swarm trap/hive (I moved it very close tonight so, we'll see).   So - what to do, if anything, with these stragglers?

Cheers,
Dane

If it's a lot of bees over several days take a couple of frames of brood from a one or more hives and start a Nuc there.  They may go back but if they've been there for a week then do the brood frames and nuc and start a new hive.