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.
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