The warm spell in March encouraged Cleo to start laying brood earlier than usual, very quickly the hive was numbering in excess of seventy thousand honey bees. Inevitably, space started to run short and a couple of weeks ago the colony decided to swarm and relocate. In terms of nature it is a good sign that Cleo was productive enough to start a second colony, however, being a clipped queen this was never going to be an option for her. Two weeks ago we spotted the swarm and were able to help her back into her hive post swarm. We know that she continued laying for at least a week as there was fresh brood in the frames at our last hive check. However, we are not sure whether or not the colony attempted to swarm again in the high temperatures of last weekend, this may well be the case, but sadly this time we did not see it happen. We can see that the colony is not Queen-right and very probably Queen-less. There is no new brood and the bees seem at a loss; desperately trying to transform existing larvae into a potential Queen cells in a last-ditch attempt to save the hive from extinction... they are like a ship without a rudder!
Monday 4 June 2012
The Queen
The warm spell in March encouraged Cleo to start laying brood earlier than usual, very quickly the hive was numbering in excess of seventy thousand honey bees. Inevitably, space started to run short and a couple of weeks ago the colony decided to swarm and relocate. In terms of nature it is a good sign that Cleo was productive enough to start a second colony, however, being a clipped queen this was never going to be an option for her. Two weeks ago we spotted the swarm and were able to help her back into her hive post swarm. We know that she continued laying for at least a week as there was fresh brood in the frames at our last hive check. However, we are not sure whether or not the colony attempted to swarm again in the high temperatures of last weekend, this may well be the case, but sadly this time we did not see it happen. We can see that the colony is not Queen-right and very probably Queen-less. There is no new brood and the bees seem at a loss; desperately trying to transform existing larvae into a potential Queen cells in a last-ditch attempt to save the hive from extinction... they are like a ship without a rudder!