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I keep most of new swarms or starts in my backyard.
In one hive, nuk swarm from 4/15/14 that I've been watching as it hasn't been very strong. It started well and I put it in a 10 frame deep a month later. I didn't feed, as we have some flow going on. I checked today and found about 3 frames of brood, mediocre pattern. Not much stores. I found on one frame a capped supercedure queen cell, brown tip. The next frame I found the queen and put her in a clip catcher with a few other bees. No other queen cells found.
Just curious what others would do with this hive and queen?
Then another strange thing happened. In a different hive, I had taken off the medium box and checked a few of the deep frames. The medium, which I didn't look through the frames as it was a medium I'd put on awhile back for bees to clean out. This hive also not the strongest, so I decided to feed. I did not see the queen in this hive as I wasn't really looking. I use a lid with feeder hole, put in a pint jar of honey from a cut out, in fact it was their own honey back. Then an empty medium on top with a lid, to prevent robbing. Got it all put together sat down to watch the entrance a bit, when I noticed on the ground right in front of the hive a ball of bees. Poked through them to find a queen. I picked up the ball, which bees kept coming back to attack her, and brought it into the house. I had them in a pail and trying to get the bees off her and get her into another queen catcher clip. It wasn't easy. I may have hurt her in the process.
I have no idea if she came from the hive she was in front of, and if that's so, why would they ball her like that? What would you do in this situation? I have her in a bug net cylinder thing I got from my grandson. She's the only bee in there. It took her a few minutes to start moving around again.
Ps, the first queen is really quite large. Is there a chance she's a new queen and the cell I saw a dud?
In one hive, nuk swarm from 4/15/14 that I've been watching as it hasn't been very strong. It started well and I put it in a 10 frame deep a month later. I didn't feed, as we have some flow going on. I checked today and found about 3 frames of brood, mediocre pattern. Not much stores. I found on one frame a capped supercedure queen cell, brown tip. The next frame I found the queen and put her in a clip catcher with a few other bees. No other queen cells found.
Just curious what others would do with this hive and queen?
Then another strange thing happened. In a different hive, I had taken off the medium box and checked a few of the deep frames. The medium, which I didn't look through the frames as it was a medium I'd put on awhile back for bees to clean out. This hive also not the strongest, so I decided to feed. I did not see the queen in this hive as I wasn't really looking. I use a lid with feeder hole, put in a pint jar of honey from a cut out, in fact it was their own honey back. Then an empty medium on top with a lid, to prevent robbing. Got it all put together sat down to watch the entrance a bit, when I noticed on the ground right in front of the hive a ball of bees. Poked through them to find a queen. I picked up the ball, which bees kept coming back to attack her, and brought it into the house. I had them in a pail and trying to get the bees off her and get her into another queen catcher clip. It wasn't easy. I may have hurt her in the process.
I have no idea if she came from the hive she was in front of, and if that's so, why would they ball her like that? What would you do in this situation? I have her in a bug net cylinder thing I got from my grandson. She's the only bee in there. It took her a few minutes to start moving around again.
Ps, the first queen is really quite large. Is there a chance she's a new queen and the cell I saw a dud?
