I have my last mating nuc in the same situation - queen not laying at all even though the bees behave as if she is mated, she looks perfect and a good size, must check it this evening as the ivy flow might encourage her to lay
I have my last mating nuc in the same situation - queen not laying at all even though the bees behave as if she is mated, she looks perfect and a good size, must check it this evening as the ivy flow might encourage her to lay
Came home from holiday to find one more of the late August queens laying worker brood. She took at least 6 weeks to start laying ... just as Jon has said earlier can happen.
Quite a few of my mini plus hives were amalgamated some time in early September after harvesting mated queens, some of the amalgamated lots had unmated queens (same age as the last round of mated queens caught) popped into a cage with a tiny bung of fondant just to help them survive the unite, others had no visible queens but some brood to work with. Nearly all these now have mated queens with good brood taking them into winter. Only time will tell how many will make it through till spring.
Checked a few Apideas in have in the garden and all were full of brood.
They were bringing in pollen in a light mizzle.
A couple of days ago after the gales I checked my one remaining MiniPlus. The roof was off and the feed rain-diluted with added flies so I lifted off the feeder to tip it out with no protection . Good number of bees inside, many with stings pointed at me but one was warm enough to fly straight up and land a sting in my cheek. No idea on their brood status .
nice looking cluster Prakel. My apideas are mostly doubles but are not as well populated as that.
These little boxes with a comb area of approx 2.5 langstroth deep frames winter well in our location as free standing hives without any extra protection (other than bigger rocks/more bricks or steel discs to stop them blowing away). We've been playing around with various comb sizes and spacing for a few years now in the mating nucs. This is where OSB3 and rough cut stick frames come into their own, if something doesn't work as we'd hoped then it's not the end of the world if the whole unit cost less than £5 in the first place.
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