ESBA Apiarist

Building the numbers

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Queen timings:

Day 0 - egg laid (usually eaten soon after!)
Day 3 - egg hatches
Day 7.5 to 8 - cell sealed
Day 16 (ish) - virgin emerges
Day 20+ - first flights

On Thursday on a flying visit at lunchtime the one and only colony was making queen cells with small larvae floating on a sea of PVA glue. They got the fastest artificial swarm I've done yet. If the furthest on was 2 days old on 12th May, plus three as an egg, it will be capped today (14th) or tomorrow. The first queen should hatch on 23rd May which is a week on Monday. So that means that the split will be safe to leave until next weekend, in that no queens will have emerged and I can distribute the queen cells to nucs then. They are pretty soft when young but toughen up towards hatching so I'd rather split the box of cells into several small nucs and transport them to a mating site next weekend. When might they come into lay? In small nucs, maybe 25-35 days? So 1 June to 11 June? Good! We should have some in lay by the time of the next association meeting on the 18th.

A bee, probably from the queenless part, decided to come and greet me when I arrived in the apiary today. Stung me on the scalp, little b****r. There were also bees sniffing around the polynucs, the equipment in the shed, and even stuff in the car before I unloaded. They're house-hunting already. Maybe I should check the split with the old queen tomorrow to check that it isn't making queen cells. I need to replace some mouse-chewed foundation anyway.

More to say but I'll write another one later.

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  1. droning_on's Avatar
    The scalp -- boy that hurts doesn't it