Demaree pt 4 - tricksy little buggers

I checked the hives on friday. No queen or brood in one, little pollen, loads of honey. With no brood to care for, the bees are just laying in stores. The other one was more complex.

I'd carried a single frame of sealed brood over from the top box when I did the v-swarm. Inevitably there were a few eggs round the side - whoever heard of a frame with _nothing_ but sealed brood? I'd removed the queen cells after 5 days - top box and bottom. This time there were queen cells on this old frame, and on the newly drawn comb on the neighbouring frame. They _really_ want rid of this queen. So, I removed the queen cells in case they'd just 'not quite got it out of their system' and left it until today - tuesday.

Again, the queenless/virgin colony has nothing but honey, so I put a frame of brood from the other colony in with them to see what they make of it.

The newly v-swarmed colony? SEALED queen cells, and lots of them.

Balls to it - they really want rid of this queen, and they're about to swarm, so lets give them what they want. The queen goes in a plastic box, one unsealed queen cell is left intact, and we'll let them requeen.

This may sound drastic, foolhardy even. But where I am I prefer not to have swarms. In fact, I'd rather lose colonies than have my position made sensitive by more swarms in neighbouring gardens. So removing the queen should nip the swarm in the bud, and also give them a chance to requeen. If I end up having to beg a queen/frame of brood/swarm from someone....well, it's been a bumper year for swarms, so there's a good chance there will be one available if I need it.

Might yet get some honey this year.

Maybe.

Beekeeping - Demaree pt3 - a lesson learned

A few weeks ago I tried a Demaree/vertical swarm for the first time.

Week 1: friday, checked for and removed queen cells from both top and bottom brood boxes

Week 2: Wednesday, lots of queen cells: play;open; and sealed. In both boxes. Removed them all.

Week 2: Friday, more queen cells in the top, probably empty or not viable, and no sign of eggs or queen in the bottom. Stupidly, I assumed that the sealed queen cells, apparent absence of the queen and lack of eggs meant that she had swarmed once the queen cells were sealed.

Week 3: Friday  the weather was dreadful - high winds, heavy rain, very cold, general nastiness. After inspecting the other colony, which was extremely resentful of being disturbed, I decided that the vertical swarm colony didn't need checking. After all, it wasn't queen-right. Right? Wrong.

Week 4: Wednesday, an email from my partner: "Your garden is FULL of flying bees!" (I forgot to mention - this colony was hived in the prime spot and had built up well. There were lots of bees in there). What the hell had gone wrong? What had I missed?

Week 4: Friday, inspect the hive and find lots of sealed queen cells (plus some other unsealed brood). The queen had seemingly still been there, stopped laying ready to swarm then, when prevented from swarming, started laying again. The workers, still in swarm mode, turned several of these eggs into queen cells, and swarmed as soon as they were sealed.

I subsequently removed /all/ the queen cells bar one. That has now been torn down and the bees are in better temper. I'm now waiting, blue pen optimistically at the ready.

Beekeeping: Mysterious queen cells - mystery and solution

Last week I did a demaree on another hive. I put a single frame of mostly sealed brood, along with the queen, in a brood box of mostly foundation, put an excluder on it, then an empty super, then a crown board, then the main brood box, followed by a super.

4 days later I opened them up to deal with the inevitable queen cells and blow me if there aren't (as well as half a dozen queen cells in the upper brood) two sealed queen cells in the top super! When I removed them they were occupied with part developed queens. Her majesty hasn't had access to the super since March, so how the hell did those get there?

It's been bothering me ever since, and I've just remembered what happened.......

When I put the whole thing back together, I was (for whatever reason, can't quite remember) one super frame short (probably due to a mix of castellated and railed supers). So I put one in that had been kicking around the shed. It had been in a 'bottom super' of a brood and a half over the winter, and must have had some eggs in it. The bees have spotted the eggs, and raised 2 queen cells from them.

So know I know - bee eggs taken out of the hive, left for two months then put back are still viable.