Will your bees attempt to swarm in May

[fatshark]

Time to prepare my bait hives I think

[The Drone Ranger]

If your bees were going to swarm at the end of May then they will have started queen cells even as early as the first week of May
When its cold and miserable I'm inclined to underestimate their progress
So if the nuc with 4 frames of brood wasn't spotted they would possibly starve as mentioned
But equally once that brood hatches and the queen has laid in the cells they will be overcrowded and once they think "swarm" they would be off

We all know this its not news
But I for one sometimes don't act on it
That's not unfixable but it does make a lot of extra work

[Emma]

Time to prepare my bait hives I think

Hah! - good luck with that: my first one is already up & ready, in the place all the scout bees liked so much last year Collected 2 swarms from there during the season (only one was mine) and a lot of information about who was planning what.

[Emma]

If your bees were going to swarm at the end of May then they will have started queen cells even as early as the first week of May
When its cold and miserable I'm inclined to underestimate their progress
So if the nuc with 4 frames of brood wasn't spotted they would possibly starve as mentioned

Yes- I should've said, although one of mine is rich & already got emerged drones, one or two others would be starving if I hadn't given them fondant. It seems there's a real range as to whether they're living within their means or not. One has been chucking so many eggs onto the varroa board I was thinking she must have become a drone layer, but instead I found 2 nice frames of worker brood & plenty of stores with space being cleared for a series of brood arcs. Very methodical, very conservative: I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do next.

[alancooper]

[QUOTE=Emma;35537]Swarming in May? This time her colony overwintered with a full box of stores, & they're very frugal I've put an empty super over their heads, but they'll be drawing queen cells within a month, for almost certain./QUOTE]
As with you Emma - one of my colonies, compared with my others, seems frugal - and two days ago I found (surprisingly) four sealed queen cells (just over a week after my first inspection of the year). Queeny is a local dark 2014 girl from the west with 4 frames brood. Game on indeed.
Alan.

[Emma]

Surprising indeed, Alan. Combined with Kate's tales of a virgin queen emerging already, on another thread, this could be shaping up to be a very weird spring. I have been wondering whether she's gradually turning drone layer - in that case all the dropped eggs could be unfertilised ones rejected by the bees. They are quite fussy... last summer I tried balsawood strips in my foundationless frames. It worked fine in other colonies, but the bees in that one set on the balsawood like a colony of wasps (making a sound like hundreds of wasps scratching for nest material all at once), and reduced the strips to neat little rows of fibre. Expressive little darlings (...that possibly isn't what I said at the time!)
Weather forecast is saying "don't even think about going in" at the moment, so it'll have to remain a mystery for now. Thanks for the heads up on what yours are up to.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Sorry - I removed my post as I posted to the wrong thread.
Kitta

[The Drone Ranger]

The curse of fine weather
One of my most backward polynucs was one frame of brood on a Paynes double box
I say was because they had loads of frames of sealed stores and not enough bees for that hive volume
I haven't been troubled by robbers in April before but that's what happened yesterday
If it had stayed cold (its going back to that anyway) or they had less space and less food, they would have been safe

[Neils]

A few weeks on. If my one colony is thinking about swarming at the end of the month I'll be amazed. The OSR is now out, but dramatically reduced in quantity over previous years. The dandelions still aren't out in the tropical highlands of the mendips and I'm having to feed them at the moment.

I don't know whether it's just weather, an effect of personal change in geography as well as for the bees, but it feels like a bloody struggle at the moment.

[The Drone Ranger]

Its a strange weather pattern Neils worse even than last year
You will easily stay on top of one hive so you are safe

Even in the cold they can be building up nicely as long as the stores don't run out

When you get your new bees this year you will have to learn their patterns
The good thing is that is fun and they might be a really great strain with luck