a couple of years ago i posted a thread about what i believed to be a usurpation attempt:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?275239-101312-usurpation-attempt&highlight=usurpation
i had another one today, but unlike the first one i actually saw the ursurping swarm fly into my yard so i know it didn't come from any of my hives.
as luck would have it i discovered today that one of the colonies in my home yard had a failed queen. i suspected it was queenless after noticing robber bees expressing interest and not seeing any pollen being brought in even though all of the other colonies were bringing it in by the truck load.
on inspection i found the runt queen that most likely failed to get mated properly. she was supposed to be the replacement queen after a swarm issued a couple of months ago. there were no eggs or brood, except a couple of queen cells with jelly that were probably started with unfertilized eggs.
i pinched the queen, destroyed the queen cells, and decided to go to my nuc yard at the end of the day and bring one home to combine with the queenless colony.
just as i was about to leave for the nuc yard i heard some buzzing. it was coming from a small swarm cloud of bees approaching my yard from the nearby woods.
when they got to my yard the bees started checking out my hives. i figured they were looking for a new home and i thought it sure would be nice if they moved into my now queenless hive. i took the entrance reducer off of the queenless hive, but by then the usurpers were trying to make their way into a few of my other hives.
i reduced the entrances on all hives except for the queenless one just to place it safe, but i'm pretty sure the others were strong enough to not be taken over by such a small swarm. there was still a lot of fighting though which resulted in a fair number of dead bees on the ground. had i walked up to the yard in the middle of all that i would have just thought it was a robbing frenzy.
i wasn't able to locate the usurping queen this time, but hopefully she ended up in the queenless hive. they probably had that one scouted out to begin with. if she's there i'll pinch her too, that's one trait i'm not too crazy about propagating.
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?275239-101312-usurpation-attempt&highlight=usurpation
i had another one today, but unlike the first one i actually saw the ursurping swarm fly into my yard so i know it didn't come from any of my hives.
as luck would have it i discovered today that one of the colonies in my home yard had a failed queen. i suspected it was queenless after noticing robber bees expressing interest and not seeing any pollen being brought in even though all of the other colonies were bringing it in by the truck load.
on inspection i found the runt queen that most likely failed to get mated properly. she was supposed to be the replacement queen after a swarm issued a couple of months ago. there were no eggs or brood, except a couple of queen cells with jelly that were probably started with unfertilized eggs.
i pinched the queen, destroyed the queen cells, and decided to go to my nuc yard at the end of the day and bring one home to combine with the queenless colony.
just as i was about to leave for the nuc yard i heard some buzzing. it was coming from a small swarm cloud of bees approaching my yard from the nearby woods.
when they got to my yard the bees started checking out my hives. i figured they were looking for a new home and i thought it sure would be nice if they moved into my now queenless hive. i took the entrance reducer off of the queenless hive, but by then the usurpers were trying to make their way into a few of my other hives.
i reduced the entrances on all hives except for the queenless one just to place it safe, but i'm pretty sure the others were strong enough to not be taken over by such a small swarm. there was still a lot of fighting though which resulted in a fair number of dead bees on the ground. had i walked up to the yard in the middle of all that i would have just thought it was a robbing frenzy.
i wasn't able to locate the usurping queen this time, but hopefully she ended up in the queenless hive. they probably had that one scouted out to begin with. if she's there i'll pinch her too, that's one trait i'm not too crazy about propagating.