Poorly chicken

[Daphne]

I was lying on the grass peering into my wildlife pond watching newts and dragonfly larvae when I realised our hive was extraordinarily noisy. OH went to peer over the back fence and reported a swarm This is the third one we've seen in the same place in 5 years. Luckily it wasn't ours, so I went to tell my next door neighbour who also has bees, and it wasn't one of his either. They'd already clustered - about 18" off the ground on a hedge branch, so we suited up, got the box and sheet, he lopped off the branch, it fell into the box, quick trek down the garden and into their new home. It looks a decent size swarm so he's very happy - he lost a colony to nosema over the winter, so this will replace it

[Olly]

Wow! Lucky you saw them - a member of my local division emailed me last weekend, to send me a photo of his bees swarming, he was able to catch them in a neighbour's garden fortunately.

 

Apparently if we get some rain after this period of good weather, swarms are very likely.

[Old Speckled Hen]

I better get cracking with my bait hive then

[Daphne]

Checked my own hive properly today - think (not sure) I've seen swarm cells on bottom of couple of frames, one with giant larvae so not yet capped so awaiting advice/assistance from more experienced beek, ready to do artificial swarm if necessary! Its all go isn't it - hatching eggs to worry about from chooks and bees

[v8landy]

This is the third one we've seen in the same place in 5 years. :

 

I have also noted that bees seam to pick the same spots year after year to land as a swarm.

 

Bait hive to go out soon for me.

[Daphne]

Yes I've got mine out and due a visit from beek on Friday morning. I keep going out to check everybody is still there

[sam42]

I believe one of my hives has swarmed as all indications were there. Queen cell has now opened so hopefully have a new queen. Told one of my beekeepers from the association and he doesn't believe it was a swarm as too early!! However, others now have confirmed it was. Queen cell was in the super which is why I have missed it!

 

Now paranoid about my other hive as that is expanding rapidly and has supers on.

 

It certainly is a learning curve!

[MedusA]

My friend's bees swarmed on Monday. Luckily she'd just bought a nuc box that day!

 

We managed to hive it (not a text book capture but we got there in the end )and have taken it to the allotments as our first colony there. I have also had queen cells so I've made up an artificial swarm which is also at the allotments.

 

It will be interesting to compare the 2 colonies.

[Guest]

I believe one of my hives has swarmed as all indications were there.

 

What were these indications?

 

I am with the experienced beek here, thus far.

 

I am more into the thought that they have superceded a queen which had previously swarmed. Was your colony a swarm with that queen? The fact that there was just the one cell and it was high up indicates this was the likely scenario.

 

If so they were just preparing to swarm, so be very aware because as soon as the virgin is mated and starts into lay, as they may well be off!

 

Tell us more, the picture may be clearer.

 

Regards, RAB

 

** how to add quotes**

Edited April 29, 2010 by Guest

[Daphne]

Well - my neighbour reports the swarm we captured in the week left its new home the very next day .

 

My beek came today and he was very impressed with the strength of the colony, took me through my handling paces and told me off about a couple of things (in a nnice and useful way!) My suspected swarm cells turned out to be mostly drone brood but we did find a QC on frame No1 and an open QC where I thought there was one - but no queen sighting. There are no/few recent eggs but plenty of capped brood, larvae, honey and a bit of pollen. He suspects possible supercedure, and he said it could even be that the swarm was mine and its come home again! Although I did a quick look when the swarm was nearby and it looked to me like I had loads of bees still in there, so I'm not sure about that. He also said if I'm lucky I could put 2nd super on in a few weeks. He also slightly suspects I have some acarine mites, apparently a hive about 10 miles from me was lost to acarine over winter. Oh and I was stung for the first time but it really didn't hurt much at all. Conversely OH was stung on the ear last week whilst taking a pic of lots of Greek hives on a hillside for me - apparently he looked like he had one normal ear and one Martin Johnson ear!

[MedusA]

Well - my neighbour reports the swarm we captured in the week left its new home the very next day .

 

That happened to our captured swarm too. Just goes to prove that there is nowt so contrary as bees!

 

This 2nd year of beekeeping is proving to be an even steeper learning curve than the first.

[Daphne]

Yes - I agree about 2nd time around. I remember somebody saying its easy the first year - new hive, new foundation, lesser chance of swarming etc etc. The thing I find hardest is when you confront something personally for the first time; I don't always remember what we were taught about it a year ago now and things never stick in the brain for me if I'm just observing at the apiary for example.

 

I got an email this morning from my beek saying how much he'd enjoyed looking at our colony (what a nice man) and offering to come up again in a month or so!

[Guest]

Don't know how/when the swarm was transferred or what the new house was like.... but a couple or more suggestions that might help in the future:

 

A Q/E underneath the brood will keep her from absconding in nearly all cases.

 

Some open brood for them to attend to.

 

Feed them?

 

Casts are more likely to move on (was not likely this early?).

 

Regards, RAB

[Daphne]

Thanks RAB - I'll try to remember the point about using the QE/X under the brood; that sounds entirely sensible and an easy thing to do. This swarm was put in an old unused house with new foundation so no brood - again a top tip for the future. I suggested feeding but my neighbour said he'd wait a day or two so at least I have the satisfaction of knowing I was on the right track there! As to whether it was a cast or not, I just don't know. My friendly beek is the swarmcatcher and he's had 2 to deal with so far this year - I don't know if thats a lot or a little! TBH I think he was a bit dubious about us having swarm cells till he saw the size of the colony and the QCs.

[Guest]

Daphne,

 

What do you call a big colony?

 

Some of mine are into a super, from 14 x 12 frame broods and I have put a super for honey on top of those.

 

If near the south coast you may well be much closer to swarming than up here in chilly Lincolnshire.

 

But, if you are on a single standard National brood you may be risking losing your foragers by simply not having enough brood laying-space for the queen. That is why none of my hives have a Q/E between the 14 x 12s and the next super, at the present time.

 

Wasn't taught that when I started but have since realised why I used to get early swarms. Simply a shortage of laying space for the queen. I noticed it when I converted to 14 x 12 from standard brood boxes and now I give them even more space, if wanted.

 

Compared to last year the bees are much later due to the harder winter and chilly spring. Swarms were abundant in the last week of April in 2009. And I mean abundant! I split one hive 4 ways before May last year. It was already building a supercedure cell in mid April and would have stayed another couple of weeks or so, but when I destroyed that cell, they started swarm cells shortly afterwards, so I split it a little earlier than I wanted to, as I wanted more of her offspring for my colonies.

 

Regards, RAB

[Daphne]

It could be that she's out of room - all but 1 or 2 frames have brood on (its a 14x12). I have wondered, as a newbie, why a brood box is the size it is, even a 14x12, why not just give them a massive box or at least a huge box which you can partition off so they keep warm and then let them grow into it as needed. I know it would be hard to move, but I don't go to the moors or anywhere else with mine, and I'd need help to carry my brood box as it is. Again, I rather like your idea because its seems like common sense; are there any drawbacks except honey loss to the humans?

[Guest]

Daphne,

 

Frame hives were really developed when the migratory beekeeping era arrived - or was it the other way round? One led to the other.

 

Well, anyway, around the 1920s the Brits decided that there were so many incompatible frame and box sizes, that they would make up a 'standard' so that anything manufactured and offered for sale, to that standard, could be guaranteed to be transferable between hives. The British National Standard was born. At that time, or soon after, they included the Jumbo (14 x 12) as a large brood frame. The large format was not popular at the time because most bees were typically less prolific than they are today. Later, a lot of beeks ran with 'a brood and a half', rather than change to the larger format because it wasn't needed all year round.

 

The Americans had the Langstroth, an altogether bigger box than the British national, but that was not deemed the way to go in those days. You might say we are now stuck with it, out on a limb, and different to the majority or the rest of the world.

 

Nowadays the 14 x 12 is much more popular - probably very much more in the last ten years or so - and represents a better size for today's prolific queens. Migratory beekeeping is still carried out in the UK by many, including me at times, and the 14 x 12 represents enough mass to be moving manually, and more than enough for some.

 

Size? The Dartington (or the beehaus - which is simply a plastic version of the former) is much larger but is not popular because it is not easily transported. One can only work from the side for most part of manipulations and has the downside that boxes cannot be stacked in the order the beekeeper may want, for instance for double brood expansion, clearing stores by putting them below the brood box, etc.

 

Added to that, the bees need to be 'managed' to extend further than about 15 frames, at most, horizontally - they like to have a spherical brood nest for heat control (minimum surface area for a given volume).

 

End of history lesson.

 

With regards to Q/Es. It only takes 3 weeks to clear a super from the time the Q/E is put on and Her Majesty is downstairs. The honey will then be available for extraction after that. At this time of the year we have the OSR which may cause problems with granulation in the frames, but any small amount of granulation I get, I normally feed back (under the brood nest). So I consider there are no, or few, drawbacks, and as the lay-rate diminishes she can be limited to the brood box. As far as I am concerned the honey harvest is only achieved with a surplus of foragers; limiting the number, by crowding the queen's laying space, is not good news.

 

Regards, RAB

[Olly]

Thanks Rab - that's a succinct explanation, and has answered something that's puzzled me for a while! (why 'standard' and why they're not used much anywhere other than the UK).

[OXFORDBEE]

Hi,

The "Standard" frame originated in the 1880's.

 

Further info can be found here:http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/hist.html.

 

The history of large frame sizes in beekeeping is interesting. However, before bar-frame hives took off there was a chap called Pettigrew who had big skeps!

[Old Speckled Hen]

Talking of skeps

Here's one in use

[chickenanne]

... and then there are wierd throwbacks like me, who uses Smith hives - which are pretty much unused outside Scotland and are distinctly old fashioned. Apparantly not as good as the (now pretty much extinct) Wormit hives, which were made by a beekeeping suppliers in Fife who were bought out, leading to their falling out of manufacture. Wormits apparantly were great for moving to the heather as the boxes had "lips" so making them way easier to keep together in transit. My parents used to live surrounded by heather moor and so in late summer there were a few older beeks who had Wormits, Smith and Glen hive types - I was only about 4-years-old though.

I use Smith's for the highly technical reason that that's what my bees were in when I acquired the colony, followed by an auction of the same beekeepers' old Smith equipment. To be fair though I've not found mine lack space: my bees are very dark, probably nearer AMM than anything else so are maybe likely less prolific than Carniolan-types (?). In fairness I wouldn't recommend them for the simple reason that most of the "new" gadegetry is unavailable for Smiths: stuff like Happy Keeper floors, and apigaurd eke's, etc etc. Maybe OK if you're good with making stuff, but I'm impatient and err toward hitting things with a hammer rather than measuring stuff properly.

 

I find the whole thing of hive type history and "regionalness" (h'mm, maybe not a word) really interesting, but didn't know any of that about Nationals: thanks all for the explanation & details.

[OXFORDBEE]

pretty much unused outside Scotland and are distinctly old fashioned.

 

Not old fashioned but not a popular type of hive. There's nothing wrong with smith hives, some people are just fussy about having long lugs so they can hold frames more easily. I use commercial hives. These like Smiths have short lugged frames. I prefer commerical supers to national supers as they hold more honey (in a simliar sized box).

[chickenanne]

I don't mind the short lugs, possibly becuase I have girly-skinny-fingers! Amongst most members of my local assoc., Smiths really are seen as being a bit old hat. Not that it matters if they are really!

[Olly]

Interestingly, I went through a hive at an apiary meeting and found the short lugs really hard to handle - i didn't have enough grip to turn the frame over easily.

 

My mentor has just come round and whizzed through my hive, at my request - it's a bit overcast and grey and I asked him to do it while I watched, to speed things up. We found about 7 queen cells, two sealed ... he said they would have been off in three days or so, especially if we got some fine weather. I'm waiting for a spare brood body to be delivered so I can do an artifical swarm, so glad i asked him to come and look. It's exactly 10 days since we last looked, when there was not a queen cell in sight!

[Daphne]

My, we do have on guard don't we! Mine are still in situ, my beek has gone off on hols so I just keep keeping an eye out!