saw something cool today

10framer · April 20, 2014, 10:39:28 PM

i went through the hive that i thought swarmed today. i split them about two weeks ago and they had sealed queen cells so i felt like the swarm i caught today had to be from this hive. sure enough the population was down. the second frame i pulled was covered in capped queen cells. i was curious so i opened one and out popped a queen, then another and another, i helped two more then went to the next frame and took one that was getting ready to hatch.
i went to a hive i split over a month ago that was hot to begin with but just kept getting worse. i decided they failed at re-queening themselves. i slid the top super over and sat the queen cell on the top bars to see how the bees would act. the queen popped out and a worker started feeding her she went down between two combs then came back out. more bees were feeding her and they started fanning. this hive is very runny and roars under good conditions but in less than a minute you could here the change in the roar. she crawled on down between the frames with her court. i then went to the nuc i pulled from that hive and crushed the queen and took one of the cells i grafted 8 or 9 days ago and gave it to them. those genetics are gone or at least diluted now and i got to watch 4 or 5 virgin queens emerge simultaneously on a comb. it was one of those things you don't get to see every day.

RHBee · April 20, 2014, 10:52:48 PM

Sounds like a good. Your right, we don't get days like that often.

drlonzo · April 20, 2014, 11:32:59 PM

You're very correct here. VERY cool indeed. Getting to watch something like that doesn't happen very often at all.

BeeMaster2 · April 21, 2014, 12:23:34 AM

That is something. Thanks for sharing.
Jim

Joe D · April 21, 2014, 01:12:09 AM

Yeap, that was cool. and you have a bunch of new queens.

Joe

GSF · April 21, 2014, 06:08:12 AM

Awesome. That don't happen every day.

johng · April 21, 2014, 01:57:37 PM

Very cool! I have had that happen several times. I have made quite a few splits like that. They seem to always accept those freshly hatched virgins. Once they are a few days old they are not as easy to introduce. I did the same thing you did earlier this year, I had two nucs where the virgin did not make it back from their mating flight. I caught two of the virgins from a swarm hive and ran them in the two nucs and got both of them to take. Left one virgin in the swarm hive and it took too. Spring time is a very exciting time to have bees.