Hi All,
I'll add some background to this post so you have some context.
I've had my hive/colony for around 15 months. We're approaching winter here in Sydney but its not a bad winter and we never even see frost on the grass in the mornings where I am.
ABout 3 months ago (Towards the end of summer) my bees started getting uber aggressive. Just going in the front yard within 3 or 4 metres of the hive would have the troops out and buzzing around your head. Usually one of them would fire a successful shot. This just kept getting worse and hive inspections were horrible. They were so gently last year that even 6 months into my hive I was inspecting with no gear and never getting stung.
So, I figured, from the copious amounts of reading I did, that a new queen was required. So I ordered one. I found only 1 of the 7 places I contacted actually had them - presumably because we're in Autumn?.
When the new queen arrived I spent forever looking for the old queen to no avail. Then on the second dday I found her and removed her. I put the new queen's plastic cage in the middle of the hive right where the majority of bees were and surrounded by brood comb. So excited that I nailed my first requeening. Now, I had read lots of pro's and con's of immediate requeening rather than waiting and honestly I weighed it all up and considering how unpleasant opening the hive was atm, I just did it straight away (well, about 30mins after removing the old one).
I waited about 11 days to inspect (yesterday) and I saw a lot of capped brood, but no eggs.
I just did another inspection today after some picture studying confirming what I was looking for. None.
But, here's the kicker, I found 2 queen cells. I don't know how long these take to build but I'm sure I would have seen them yesterday if they were there. One cell is uncapped (and had a bee in it, maybe getting it ready?) the other was capped.
This would suggest to me that the hive is currently queenless.
The hive is really strong and I recently put a honey super on. The bee's cover all of the brood come and are 4 or 5 bees deep in mounds on the bottom of the frame. If my hive is growing new queens I'm relatively comfortable (given our climate) that they'd be ok. But, maybe I should remove the super if the population is to thin out as there are not many up there yet. Do I also restrict the entrance? I have a toothed piece of metal that slides over the entrance.
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Christian.
I'll add some background to this post so you have some context.
I've had my hive/colony for around 15 months. We're approaching winter here in Sydney but its not a bad winter and we never even see frost on the grass in the mornings where I am.
ABout 3 months ago (Towards the end of summer) my bees started getting uber aggressive. Just going in the front yard within 3 or 4 metres of the hive would have the troops out and buzzing around your head. Usually one of them would fire a successful shot. This just kept getting worse and hive inspections were horrible. They were so gently last year that even 6 months into my hive I was inspecting with no gear and never getting stung.
So, I figured, from the copious amounts of reading I did, that a new queen was required. So I ordered one. I found only 1 of the 7 places I contacted actually had them - presumably because we're in Autumn?.
When the new queen arrived I spent forever looking for the old queen to no avail. Then on the second dday I found her and removed her. I put the new queen's plastic cage in the middle of the hive right where the majority of bees were and surrounded by brood comb. So excited that I nailed my first requeening. Now, I had read lots of pro's and con's of immediate requeening rather than waiting and honestly I weighed it all up and considering how unpleasant opening the hive was atm, I just did it straight away (well, about 30mins after removing the old one).
I waited about 11 days to inspect (yesterday) and I saw a lot of capped brood, but no eggs.
I just did another inspection today after some picture studying confirming what I was looking for. None.
But, here's the kicker, I found 2 queen cells. I don't know how long these take to build but I'm sure I would have seen them yesterday if they were there. One cell is uncapped (and had a bee in it, maybe getting it ready?) the other was capped.
This would suggest to me that the hive is currently queenless.
The hive is really strong and I recently put a honey super on. The bee's cover all of the brood come and are 4 or 5 bees deep in mounds on the bottom of the frame. If my hive is growing new queens I'm relatively comfortable (given our climate) that they'd be ok. But, maybe I should remove the super if the population is to thin out as there are not many up there yet. Do I also restrict the entrance? I have a toothed piece of metal that slides over the entrance.
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Christian.