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Thread: Apiary Vicinity mating again

  1. #41
    Senior Member busybeephilip's Avatar
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    Jon,
    As luck would have it I was busy chopping down a tree with the chainsaw and a few bees started flying around me. Well, on standing back I observed mini nuc in live action AVM (perhaps)

    this is what I saw, the bees in the mini all poured out of the small round hole entrance and began to circle, I watched to see if i could see a Q but nothing at all. Some returning field bees seemed to sense that someting was wrong and simply circled around the entrance hole then flew off to i assume join the swarm. There was no activity at the nuc for about 5-10 minutes but you could see the bees circling around the garden high and low from side to side over an area of about 25m square. I did not notice any sign of a cluster. After 10 mins or so the bees returned to the box and began vigorously fanning, I watched closely until the whole event was over.

    My conclusion is that this is an attempt at absconding by means of some sort of swarming behaviour and is nothing to do with queen mating as there in this case no queen flying involved at all

  2. #42
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I have seen the queens leave with all the bees and return Phil. Did you look in the box to see if there was a queen inside when this was taking place? Was it empty?

  3. #43
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by busybeephilip View Post
    My conclusion is that this is an attempt at absconding by means of some sort of swarming behaviour and is nothing to do with queen mating as there in this case no queen flying involved at all
    Maybe also check for eggs two days from now?

  4. #44
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    Maybe also check for eggs two days from now?
    Just checked the Apidea mentioned in the first post and it is full of eggs.

  5. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    Just checked the Apidea mentioned in the first post and it is full of eggs.
    Many of my queens delayed by the inclement weather have started laying now but I'll wait to see a tidy brood pattern of sealed brood before being prepared to harvest them. I know that many of their same age sisters which have already started laying have been dlq unfortunately. It's been a very indifferent July and only in the last week have we had any properly nice days for queen mating.

  6. #46
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mbc View Post
    Many of my queens delayed by the inclement weather have started laying now but I'll wait to see a tidy brood pattern of sealed brood before being prepared to harvest them.
    Yep. Same here. I wait 10 days at least from she starts to lay. There was a 2 week spell at the end of July where there was no chance of queens mating properly and there will probably be a few drone layers in a batch or two from that period.
    It has got far more difficult than it was in June. Starting with virgins in June I was getting about 90% mated and at the moment with the weather and the wasps it is more like 50%. Anything short of bees gets picked off and cleaned out very quickly by the wasps. I am trying to double up where I can to put them on to 6-8 frames rather than 3.

  7. #47
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    One of the advantages of the slightly larger mating nucs is that they're a bit more robust, not just in terms of keeping the wasps at bay but also avoiding starvation and overcrowding. Only today I found an apidea which had been successfully mated with some nice brood but bees gone, I suspect lack of food left them weak for the wasps to clear out, all the mini plus in the same site were fine.

  8. #48
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I can see the advantages of the mini plus with regard to holding off the wasps in August.

  9. #49
    Senior Member busybeephilip's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    I have seen the queens leave with all the bees and return Phil. Did you look in the box to see if there was a queen inside when this was taking place? Was it empty?
    Just catching up

    This was definitely an absconding event or swarming behaviour. Yes there is a queen present.

  10. #50
    Senior Member busybeephilip's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    Maybe also check for eggs two days from now?

    Yes but dont need to as there is already eggs present ! definately an absconding / swarming event

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