I over wintered two hives, one was booming the other was struggling population wise. She lays but not as prolific.
Plan was to re-queen and for the last 3 weeks I have been moving to a new house and could never make time. Was going to re-queen last weekend and was advised not to move bees and re-queen around same time.
I cleared and pulled the honey stores from Spring flow, and moved the two hives on Saturday night 6/28.
On that night I noticed I had left one of those green drone frames in for too long, I pulled it and all the drones had hatched and the cells were backfilled with honey. It was the only frame I pulled during the move, and I pulled it up without creating space from an outermost frame like I normally would. I rolled a lot of angry bees as I pulled that frame. There were queen cups on the bottom edge as is typical on some frames. I put the frame back in....because everyone was home and very pissy.
On 7/1, yesterday, I did my first inspection post move. I moved the bees from the countryside to a neighborhood, and so the goal of the inspection was two fold. Access the mite population with all those drones, create space in the hive and make sure I don’t have any swarms in the neighborhood....so nervous about this.
I went through both hives and the only thing of note was in the struggling hive on the bottom of that drone frame was two long capped queen cells. They are right next to each other. There are queen cups all over the hive and none are capped nor have eggs or jelly from what I could see. There seems to be the same amount of bees, and full honey stores. I am hoping these are supercedure cells and not swarm cells.
I hung two five frame nuc swarm traps in trees around my property, and put a queen lure & lemon grass soaked paper towel to catch a swarm that might be cast.
What are your thoughts on what I should be doing next? MANY THANKS!!!!
Plan was to re-queen and for the last 3 weeks I have been moving to a new house and could never make time. Was going to re-queen last weekend and was advised not to move bees and re-queen around same time.
I cleared and pulled the honey stores from Spring flow, and moved the two hives on Saturday night 6/28.
On that night I noticed I had left one of those green drone frames in for too long, I pulled it and all the drones had hatched and the cells were backfilled with honey. It was the only frame I pulled during the move, and I pulled it up without creating space from an outermost frame like I normally would. I rolled a lot of angry bees as I pulled that frame. There were queen cups on the bottom edge as is typical on some frames. I put the frame back in....because everyone was home and very pissy.
On 7/1, yesterday, I did my first inspection post move. I moved the bees from the countryside to a neighborhood, and so the goal of the inspection was two fold. Access the mite population with all those drones, create space in the hive and make sure I don’t have any swarms in the neighborhood....so nervous about this.
I went through both hives and the only thing of note was in the struggling hive on the bottom of that drone frame was two long capped queen cells. They are right next to each other. There are queen cups all over the hive and none are capped nor have eggs or jelly from what I could see. There seems to be the same amount of bees, and full honey stores. I am hoping these are supercedure cells and not swarm cells.
I hung two five frame nuc swarm traps in trees around my property, and put a queen lure & lemon grass soaked paper towel to catch a swarm that might be cast.
What are your thoughts on what I should be doing next? MANY THANKS!!!!
