Bees swarming

[Dulwichmudlark]

yep gap in nector producing plants most garden plants these days are usless to bees and butterflys not all flowers produce nector eney more good to here your bees ok Chic u should still produce a honey crop if the weather plays ball

[PeckhamRose]

tarafitness: a couple of sachets of seeds labelled bee friendly seeds from a well known supermarket with an orange theme. I liberally sprinkled them around the flower beds.

[Chick]

Well, my bee?s swarmed today, but only to a tree in my garden. I managed to get them into a big card board box with the help of my son, Sam. Inside I had placed a temporary nuc box and five new frames which I fortunately had. I also put in a frame from the old hive which had honey on to attract them. They seem to have settled but I won?t know for sure until tomorrow. There were thousands of them.

Checked the old hive and it still has plenty of bees. Found four queen cells and destroyed three of them so I hope to have an active queen soon. There is some time left as there are lots grubs and sealed brood. There is a lot to this bee keeping and I am very much a novice. I am still buzzing from the adrenaline rush but I didn?t feel scared at the time. No pun intended. Will post some pictures at the weekend.

[Dulwichmudlark]

Chick have u typed super boost it's a pheromone that stops swarming and boasts brood and honey crop

[lizbells6]

Chick, I hope your swarm stayed. They wouldn't need honey though, they will have filled up their honey sacs from the old hive before they swarmed. Drawn comb is good for holding them if you have a spare frame plus a frame of brood (check no queen cells on it!).

[oggieoggieoggie]

Does anyone know how to deal with bees swarming outside my window and going into a hole in my wall - I can't open my window?! Help!

[Chick]

Kept my swarm over night, checked them next day at twelve and they were still there. Went off to buy a new temp hive and they had gone. I gave them a frame of honey as I thought it would encourage them to stay but that was a mistake. The just ate it and disappeared. I should have put in a frame of brood. Never mind, will know better next time.

[Chick]

More pics

[Chick]

Last one

[Chick]

Have a look at some new pictures.

[Salsaboy]

Love to. Where are they?

[Dulwichmudlark]

Bees doing what thay do best stumping there keeper lol

[Chick]

Salsaboy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Love to. Where are they?

About four posts up.

[Chick]

Well catching the swarm didn?t work, I made the mistake of feeding them and they boggered off. My son saw lots of drone activity so hopefully I now have an impregnated queen and should be seeing new brood next week.

[Chick]

Someone asked why they leave:

They swarmed because there were too many in the hive. The old queen goes away with about half the hive, they swarm mostly to a tree then scout bees go out and look for a new home. Meantime in the hive the worker bees will have fed some ?royal jelly? to some of the grubs and they turn into queens. If more than one queen is born they meet and fight to the death. The remaining virgin queen then mates with three to five drones (stingless males) and they then die. In September with the onset of winter any remaining drones are killed off, their wing muscles get bitten and they get kicked out of the hive. I just hope that I haven?t had another swarm, will check at the weekend.

[Chick]

After my bee?s swarmed I checked the hive and found four queen cells and destroyed three of them. There were lots of sealed and unsealed brood. I decided not to check them for a couple of weeks and did so last week. I found mostly empty cells but about ten thousand bees. I had one frame of unsealed brood and saw the new queen. All this is good news and next week I will treat them for the parasitic mite veroa. I may rob then of on frame of honey, it would be nice to have some at last. But it does feel like robbery.

[Chick]

After my bee?s swarmed I checked the hive and found four queen cells and destroyed three of them. There were lots of sealed and unsealed brood. I decided not to check them for a couple of weeks and did so last week. I found mostly empty cells but about ten thousand bees. I had one frame of unsealed brood and saw the new queen. All this is good news and next week I will treat them for the parasitic mite veroa. I may rob then of on frame of honey, it would be nice to have some at last. But it does feel like robbery.