I was inspecting my far hive at my house and I started closeing everything up. I noticed a lot of bees buzzing around near me. I went back to the porch and looked back and saw the swarm landing on the cinderblock temporary hive stand.
I initially freeked out and though that I had dropped my queen while working with her, but I remembered that I put the only frame I removed in front of the hive, not behind it.
I threw them the best I could with my bee-vac into the nuc I had been trying to get to raise a queen. What a dumb idea. They all immediatly started fighting. I sugarwater sprayed all of them and shook every frame infront of the hive. I also smoked really well....
Don't ask me why I added them to the queenless nuc... I didn't think about the cardboard nuc I had squirreled away in the garage.
Here's what I'm a little fuzzy on. Where did the swarm come from? They look Italian to me. Are they from one of your hives?
ReplyDeleteI really don't know. I didn't see a queen, but they kept landing there on the corner and I would suck them up. The nuc had bees from all 4 of my other hives as I moved four frames of eggs and brood in every 3 weeks and quite a few of the tennants of the nuc had issue with me dumping the swarm into the nuc. The swarm bees are VERY blond italian colors. They are not cordovans, but a few are pretty close. There are two Kona Hawiian italian queens in my yard, and happens to be one they landed on too... I did have a wad of old burr comb sitting on that corner that they continually scrambled for.
ReplyDeleteThe other odd thing is that there were about 100 that landed right by my VERY strong Carni hive. The one with two honey supers.... and they wouldn't go anywhere and I couldn't suck them up because they were running like crazy in and out of the porch wood and the stand. I tried putting a cardboard nuc but they were just running around and wouldn't go in.
I am 90% sure I didn't have a swarm or lose a queen. Going to go into all of them today after I go into the nuc and see if I can find a queen. I have 3 good capped queen cells in there too....