Will your bees attempt to swarm in May

[The Drone Ranger]

About time to put in Snelgrove boards now
Has to be before you find charged queen cells
Queen downstairs with one frame of unsealed brood/larva rest empty drawn combs and foundation
Then put on Queen excluder
Put supers on top of excluder
Snelgrove board on top of supers
All the rest of brood in another broodbox above the board
Open an upper entrance at one side
Open and close doors as per schedule (about 6 days between changes)
The rear upper is where the new queen will fly out for mating
Pin a margarine tub lid or something under the entrance as a marker and landing board
Watch the top box doesn't starve because there will not be many field bees bringing in supplies

[Greengage]

I did everything you said, had all the gear standing there ready to go today they must have heard me coming because eruption up and away the went, could you believe it!!! anyway caught them and have them stored away for transporting to different apiary this evening, you couldn't make this stuff up.

[The Drone Ranger]

Yes GG that's typical
Still if they had queen cells they would have swarmed even if you got a board on
Hey Ho !! That's life I suppose
Best just let the queenless half raise their own queen
I have found that if you try introducing a queen at this time of year they find a way of raising a sneaky queen cell and bumping her off
Bad enough if the queen comes from your own mininuc but disasterous if it's a Lasi hygenic or AMM beauty that comes with a mortgage

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[greengumbo]

Mine will. Pre-emptive swarm control next week I think for the majority.

One on a great foraging site had charged queen cells this morning.....gulp.

[lindsay s]

Mine won’t. Not much progress in the last two weeks, a cold spell has held them back. My strongest colony has 4½ frames of brood and the rest have 3 to 4. Only one good foraging day here last week, although the weather has now improved. The hives have plenty of stores but could do with more bees to look after their expanding brood nests.

[Calum]

Got a tipp from a local "pro" to pull out two frames of open brood and put them in the super as soon as the first queen cup is seen, and replace it with frames of foundation.
Should draw bees out from the core of the brood and give the workes something to do.

Seems to have worked very well so far. But Starting to build nucs this weekend, so that will stop any ideas of swarming... I hope.

[Poly Hive]

Put the queen and some brood in a nuc and let the main hive get on with it. And or, pop some brood combs in another nuc with some shakes of bees and again let them get on with it. So one laying queen in reserve and two bites at getting virgins mated, and then unite for heather. Swarming? What swarming??

PH

[greengumbo]

Put the queen and some brood in a nuc and let the main hive get on with it. And or, pop some brood combs in another nuc with some shakes of bees and again let them get on with it. So one laying queen in reserve and two bites at getting virgins mated, and then unite for heather. Swarming? What swarming??

PH

Nice

[The Drone Ranger]

All quiet on the AMM front
They don't swarm (ever)
But I thought would be reading about hundreds of AI AMM queens flying from banks of mini nucs by now
I have about 30 mini nucs on the go fingers crossed on weather all hybrids of course
Rape ending so the drive to swarm will be stronger

[Jimbo]

DR you may be looking in the wrong place
Try looking at the pretty pictures on the SNHBS Facebook page
Most Amm don't live in OSR areas so slower to get going


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