Supersedure in the Works

The Buckfast Hive is thriving, but no need to add more supers yet. I couldn't check the brood nest as yet another thunderstorm moved in.

The carniolan swarm hive looks to replace the queen. She's not laying in a very good pattern, and I saw some swarm cells. They need to finish drawing comb in all the frames and I hope during the basswood flow and later on they'll have enough winter stores, unlike the bees that previously occupied that hive also replaced their queen.

New Bees Old Bees Swarm Bees

The Carniolans I hived after I captured their swarm have set up housekeeping and seem to be thriving. They're drawing comb, and since it was a little cool I didn't check the frames so I don't know if they're raising brood yet. I added a second deep hive body.

The Buckfast hive swarmed last week. I didn't see the swarm leave the hive, but I saw them leave the maple tree they clustered on when my wife said, "What's that airplane sound? Oh, my God, your bees are swarming." Yes they did, honey.

I checked on them and the new queen has been released. I didn't see her, but I did see queen cells on the bottom of the frames on the upper deep hive body. Hmmm.......Have to figure out what that means. I'll check them in a few days and see what's what since it's supposed to warm up nicely and I can have the hives open for more than a few minutes.

Swarm Capture

A fellow beekeeper a few blocks away called me and told me her carniolan hive had swarmed. In her neighbor's backyard the swarm landed about twenty feet up in a crab apple tree. We cut the limb, put the bees in a box, and I hived them in my vacant hive. This is the first time I've done this, and I hope I got the queen. Not only that, I hope they set up housekeeping. The pictures show the swarm (poor, blurry picture) and the remnant branches and empty box next to the hived bees.