My bees have started on some new forage today - loads of them coming back fully loaded in bright green pollen, with their 'noses' and bellies covered too - any ideas? Similar colour to meadowsweet pollen but this doesn't seem to cover them the same way.
I've got plenty of hogweed and brambles around, meadowsweet, and willowherb is getting going.
I'll see if I can get a photo later when I'm suited up, they look ridiculous.
The limes's in full bloom here so bees picking up.
I found the start of swarm cells in a colony I'd failed to check for a while. The largest of these was 24 hours short of being capped, I reckon, with a neat hole on the side of the cell wall, as you see sometimes when the queen attacks additional swarm cells.
Could the Queen (2015) have been having a funk about the workers' planned changes or what caused the cell wall hole?
Here's a photo further to my post earlier, they're enjoying whatever it is.
I had to look up what 'funk' means. I would not be surprised if the queen had a funk facing such an uncertain future away from her cosy home. But it might also have been the workers who decided the time is not ripe - or, could you have overlooked an open queen cell from which a virgin might have emerged recently?Originally Posted by Kate Atchley
Kitta
Are you sure there'e no meadowsweet out around you? I'm seeing the first flowers out here in Ardnamurchan. The centered bee looks as though she could be carrying meadowsweet and I've found that flower's pollen loads, in particular, vary in colour from pale yellowy green through to a darker, more rusty-coloured version.Here's a photo further to my post earlier, they're enjoying whatever it is.
The right hand bee with a different green pollen could be carrying raspberry perhaps?
Thanks Kate. There is tons of meadowsweet around, but I hasn't previously noticed them being covered all over in it which I thought seemed quite distinctive.
All of the above Kitta! However, having kept an eye on the colony, I think the time lapse between a virgin queen emerging (from an un-noticed cell) to do the damage, and these half-formed Q cells, is too long to be likely ... and would the old queen not have swarmed? No sign of her flying off.
The workers have now gone on to complete all the cells, including repairing the one with the neat hole. I'd separated them from the queen by then so who knows who did the damage.
My bet is on the queen in a funk ... but finding nothing inside the hole to sting, the new queen larva being still buried in royal jelly deep in the cell. Wish I'd taken a pic!
Were they definitely swarm cells you had - could it be supercedure that they or the queen decided against?
(I harvested a few supercedure queencells from one colony last year and then they decided to keep the queen anyway so she headed up a colony all this summer until a couple of weeks ago - she had started to fade, and has now been retired for now with the colony being united to a strong nuc. Interestingly the old queen has 5 1/2 legs with the bottom half of one back leg missing. I am not sure whether it went before she was introduced to a small nuc or as a result of it).
... So being separated from the queen you now have to decide on what to do with the queencells.
Yes they might have been superseder cells and I'm keeping an eye on the Q and frames. She's in her second season and been laying fantastically well so I sense they were probably swarm cells but now split between two nucs so, if they need a new queen, I am likely to be able to return one of them (if the rain ever stops to allow for Q mating!).
Last edited by Kate Atchley; 10-07-2017 at 04:11 PM.
First good flying day this week in Aberdeenshire yesterday, spotted blue pollen coming in which I believe to be willowherb. It's not quite in full bloom where I am but getting there.
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