Move them as near or far as you want ... the 3 mile rule is suspended for a day or two with swarms. As Chris suggests, don't move them until they're all back in the box - probably late evening. Don't feed them for 3 days, give them undrawn foundation, then feed them syrup.
Well done.
Good luck with them Biggus
have a look at what a Snelgrove board does when you get a chance
Next season it might be worth a go
Inspected a bait hive in the garden last night; I thought a swarm had moved in last Friday and sure enough a cast has taken up residence. Bees more uniform in appearance than mine, and I guess someone in West end of Dundee has been raising carnies. Lovely laying pattern so put in polynuc and started to feed last night. Despite only small colony I could not spot the Q. Will move them out of town and try to build up. This might make up for the split I made 4 weeks ago from a Q I wanted to raise from, that seems to have failed.
FD I thought you were making your splits over a Snelgrove this year ?Originally Posted by Feckless Drone
DR - yes, the Snelgrove splits are fine, but I got greedy and kept an extra Q-cell back and set it up in a poly-nuc. Although I say the splits are fine, and they are now they took over 4 weeks from emergence for the Qs to start laying. Is this a theme this year?
I think it is (with me anyway)
Good thing about the board is if the queen disappears on a mating flight or is duff
You can just raise some larva with brood bees from below the board to get a second chance
You need to watch for swarming from the bottom after about 4 weeks so its a nuisance if the new queen is slow to lay
Received a little box of comb with eggs from Margie in Gairloch today . Into a queenless broodless apidea they went straightaway. Grafting from them if/when (fingers crossed) they hatch. They were posted yesterday so not too long in a hot postal van. But it's an exciting experiment and we'll learn something even if it doesn't work.
Re: todays news
Christened my red posca pen today! Lovely galtee daughter virgin hatched out of a cell I placed in my nuc that had a dud queen.
Only thing is there are some carnie drones left in the hive as a legacy of the previous queen. Hopefully she avoids these and has good mating on her flight
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That one could be laying already as I have a load from the same batch started laying.
I have 5 which emerged on 7 July had eggs on the 15th and I just checked 3 on my allotment which emerged on 12 July and they have eggs as well.
They do tend to fly and mate more quickly from Apideas.
Just back from checking mine, which also all emerged on the 7th ... all laying ;-) These are destined for banking and then making up nucs for overwintering (slight delay due to a lack of painting of the poly nucs). This good weather is excellent news for queen rearing. My third lot of grafts went on today.
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