Yet more swarms

A week after the swarm arrived and took up residence in a nuc (now moved into full hive), and another swarm turned up two or three metres away in the leylandii  (this has also been moved into a full hive, during that process I spotted the queen, my guess newly hatched.  They had been in the nuc for a couple of days and no eggs had been laid, so it will be a few weeks before I find out if she has been successfully mated).  Its likely that both these colonies came from the same hive, the first being the main swarm with the old queen the second a newly hatched princess.  Both these colonies have been moved to a new apiary.

 I had just finished preparing these two colonies to be moved when one of the people who live close to the apiary walked in and announced that a swarm had arrived in his garden. As he had once kept bees as boy at school I knew it was highly likely to be a true swarm and not bumblebees or wasps or any of the other insects I take calls for.

A five minute walk later and there it is, a small swarm in a young pear tree.  My guess is that is yet another newly hatched princess from the same hive as the last two swarms.  Dropped them straight into a nuc where they will spend the next few days.  If it is another new princess I will combine them with the last one, loads of small new queens is a waste of time, getting them up to a full colony asap is the priority. I'm not aware of any other beekeepers in the location but there must be one, and losing a lot of bees.  Not going to be much left of at least one of their hives.

While all this is going on honey is still coming in at a rate.  There is an enormous amount of blackberries growing wild in the hedgerows at the moment and the honey being extracted is very light and floral.

Swarms, queens and eggs

For the last couple of weeks the weather had definitely take a turn for the worse, but a week ago push came to shove and I had to do an inspection.  When I turned up at this apiary a swarm had taken residence since my last visit.

But not in a nice hive left there for artificial swarming, oh no, lets all cram into a totally empty nuc, and build a load of wild comb.  Nothing much I could do at the time except dump them all in the hive.  OK one week later and a nice weekend, so in I go, a bit apprehensive that the swarm might be one of my own colonies, always a possibility however unlikely. Started with the single super colony on the far left, saw the queen loads of eggs, good colony.  Next the colony far right with three supers, saw the queen loads of eggs good colony.  Now the newly established swarm,

This is the wild comb they had built on the crownboard of the nuc, covered in capped brood.  However imagine my surprise when going through the colony I came across this,

a green marked queen, 2019 if the marking is correct.  I don't mark my queens, so this strong colony is not out of my hives. 

Now there are quite a few novice beekeepers who have difficulty seeing eggs or really know what they are supposed to be looking for.  I know its not easy until you get used to it, so this is what you are looking for.

All through this inspection the bees were much more active than usual with huge numbers in the air.  Not thinking much more of it I closed up cleared away and prepared to leave.  Just above head height on a leylandii branch another swarm had rocked up.

Now I'm fairly good at handing out advice but taking my own, not so much.  No spare hive with me, so for now they are in the on site nuc.  Its a big swarm so whether they stay or not is even more uncertain than usual.
Both the swarms will be moved to a new site this week.