Will your bees attempt to swarm in May

[The Drone Ranger]

Yes thanks C4u
It's easy when it's cold to underestimate what stage they are at
I looked in one poly nuc two days ago 4 frames of brood and 1 plus half food
So that's likely to be early swarming and run out of food
Certainly will need watching closely
If you were sitting at home thinking "it's too cold there's plenty time" then that could be a mistake


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[Calluna4u]

So that's likely to be early swarming and run out of food
Certainly will need watching closely

Good warning many would be wise to heed.

Moved a load of nucs onto OSR near Edinburgh yesterday and a few were dangerously light. Checked a further group today and ditto.....even to the point of one having no food left at all and being all slow. Tomorrow all nucs will have to be fed.

Many were to be prepared for customers this week, and should probably now be delayed until the situation is stabilised.

With the next week remaining cool, and the last week of the month seemingly going to be really cold with northerlies, relying on early flows to feed the bees is not going to be safe.

PITA for most....this cold start will likely cost me about 20K of feed bill.........bummer.

At least the spectre of any really early swarms is off the list of worries.

[Jon]

seeing the same thing with mine. About 4-5 litres of syrup will do them the world of good at this stage.

[Feckless Drone]

A couple of weeks ago - when we had that good spell I opened up a couple of colonies on a sheltered site, peeked under the crown board of some others and hefted. All colonies have wintered really well with lots of bees; there were even two that looked ready for a super or a second brood box which I have never seen so early. But, they were all light on stores with fondant gone from some. I thought I was being overly conservative putting on more fondant, and some crystallised super frames under the brood nest but I simply thought this would be helpful to reduce stress on the colonies. These bees were very well feed last autumn, some boosted by the heather, and ivy that went on and on. The good autumn and mild winter has no doubt helped keep numbers up but this has used up stores more than I have seen before. The weather will slow them down a bit but I am confident mine will be making preparations to swarm in May.

[The Drone Ranger]

I am putting the Snelgrove boards on this weekend
(For better or worse)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4k...w?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4k...w?usp=drivesdk

Screenshot-49.jpg

This is the front and rear of the cards I use
The rear let's you keep track of the Snelgrove doors
It might help when there are a lot to keep an eye on

The door numbers are when standing at the rear of the hive
So it's
1 above 2 on your right
3 above 4 on your left
5 above 6 rear centre

Also method 2 should say move the Queen and a frame of brood to the bottom not just a frame of brood
Best of luck with it


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[Greengage]

going to give this a go see what happens. tks for card info.

[fatshark]

Good stuff DR
What sort of strength are the colonies when you add the board (for Method 1)? Do you judge when it's time by frames of brood, queen cups, presence of drones or that - for once - the day is warm enough to open the box?

[nemphlar]

I'm following method 1, in this weather it can only be roughly by tonight all the hives that have a full brood box of bees and ~40% plus of brood are split with open boards on, spotted more drones wandering around no idea what age they might be.
Splitting one of the hives I spotted an unmarked queen and put the frame in the spare box, next frame had a recently hatched queen cell, went back through the brood box and found another unmarked queen with an egg still attached I'm assuming she's the mother of the brood and eggs, so put her in the top section and left the possible virgin in the bottom in case she has already orientated. I checked this hive in September and they had a good going marked queen, no idea how they managed to have a functioning queen in the interim and still try a supercedure with a queen that is laying well

[Greengage]

Checked mine yesterday, I also have supercedure capped cell, some drones wandering about, but cannot locate queen there are brood all stages and some eggs, So left cell and will wait to see what hapens, Old queen is clipped and marked, had two people looking so maybe she died. I dont know maybe she is still there but we just could not see her.

[madasafish]

One swarm this am - checked last week and missed all QCs ... Managed to rehive asap..