Hello, I'm new to beekeeping, so any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.
I received my bees (Italian) at the end of May. Throughout this month I have checked and fed them ~once a week. Everything seemed to be going well.
Yesterday I went in to check the top box. I discovered that in 2 weeks time they were already starting to draw out the 9th and 10th frame of this top box. Upon closer inspection, I discovered what I now know are drone cells (LOTS of large, bulbous, brown cells near the bottoms of the frames), a lot of larvae, and what I assume are queen cells hanging from the bottom. Having sorted through many of the posts on this site and information in my book, I knew this could be a sign of an oncoming swarm.
Today I met with my bee supplier, Harold, to buy a super and queen excluder. I mentioned the peanut-shaped queen cells (2-4 all lumped together???) hanging from the bottom. The largest clump had a large hole in the back that bees were crawling in and out of. I'm not sure if the queen cells were "capped" or not. Harold's advice was to look carefully for eggs in both of my boxes. If I find eggs, go ahead and scrape off the queen and drone cells hanging from the bottoms. If I don't find egg cells, the bees maybe trying to make a new queen, so just leave them.
When I got home I geared up and when in again. I took the top box off the bottom box and started pulling out frames from the bottom box for the first time since I put the top box on. It was difficult. There were bees everywhere in/on the bottom frames. They were not happy with my intrusion and acted aggressively. I had trouble pulling the heavy, sticky frames out, and through the process of taking them in and out and putting the top box back on, I unfortunately crushed a lot of my bees.
What I discovered on those bottom frames I did manage to pull out, is that there are a handful of MORE long queen cells hanging from the bottom of the middle frames. It sounds like this is not a good sign. Prepare for swarm. BUT, my inexperienced eye did not find any eggs. Of course I was sucking in smoke, nervous about the angry bees, fretting about crushing them, and struggling with the hive parts... so I could be wrong about the absence of eggs.
Out of curiosity I scraped a cluster of drone cells/queen cells? off the bottom of one of these frames. I replaced the frames and boxes, and added the super and excluder to the top.
I guess my questions are:
1) what do you think about the possible lack of eggs, the excess number of drones, and the handful of queen cells hanging from the bottom? Is there anything can do, or should I sit back and let nature take its course?
2) Is it typical to kill some bees each time you work with them? I feel terrible about this. When I brush them away they seem to fly around me angrily and more bees just take their place before I can do anything.
2) While searching through the middle frames from the bottom box, I came across half dozen or so bees in a circle with their heads facing in towards one cell (near a top corner of a frame). It was very distinct. Could the queen have been in there? Were they protecting her from me? I hope I didn't crush them with my sloppy gloved finger when pulling out that frame :doh:
I have posted on here once before, and the response was helpful. This is such a wonderful tool. Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond!
Jesse
I received my bees (Italian) at the end of May. Throughout this month I have checked and fed them ~once a week. Everything seemed to be going well.
Yesterday I went in to check the top box. I discovered that in 2 weeks time they were already starting to draw out the 9th and 10th frame of this top box. Upon closer inspection, I discovered what I now know are drone cells (LOTS of large, bulbous, brown cells near the bottoms of the frames), a lot of larvae, and what I assume are queen cells hanging from the bottom. Having sorted through many of the posts on this site and information in my book, I knew this could be a sign of an oncoming swarm.
Today I met with my bee supplier, Harold, to buy a super and queen excluder. I mentioned the peanut-shaped queen cells (2-4 all lumped together???) hanging from the bottom. The largest clump had a large hole in the back that bees were crawling in and out of. I'm not sure if the queen cells were "capped" or not. Harold's advice was to look carefully for eggs in both of my boxes. If I find eggs, go ahead and scrape off the queen and drone cells hanging from the bottoms. If I don't find egg cells, the bees maybe trying to make a new queen, so just leave them.
When I got home I geared up and when in again. I took the top box off the bottom box and started pulling out frames from the bottom box for the first time since I put the top box on. It was difficult. There were bees everywhere in/on the bottom frames. They were not happy with my intrusion and acted aggressively. I had trouble pulling the heavy, sticky frames out, and through the process of taking them in and out and putting the top box back on, I unfortunately crushed a lot of my bees.
Out of curiosity I scraped a cluster of drone cells/queen cells? off the bottom of one of these frames. I replaced the frames and boxes, and added the super and excluder to the top.
I guess my questions are:
1) what do you think about the possible lack of eggs, the excess number of drones, and the handful of queen cells hanging from the bottom? Is there anything can do, or should I sit back and let nature take its course?
2) Is it typical to kill some bees each time you work with them? I feel terrible about this. When I brush them away they seem to fly around me angrily and more bees just take their place before I can do anything.
2) While searching through the middle frames from the bottom box, I came across half dozen or so bees in a circle with their heads facing in towards one cell (near a top corner of a frame). It was very distinct. Could the queen have been in there? Were they protecting her from me? I hope I didn't crush them with my sloppy gloved finger when pulling out that frame :doh:
I have posted on here once before, and the response was helpful. This is such a wonderful tool. Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond!
Jesse