Problems

[Troutnabout]

Hi Trounabout,

Jon is correct, you collect a sample of about 50 bees and place in a freezer. As you are in Lanarkshire and not far from Glasgow you can drop them off to me or can post them if preferred. If you e-mail me I can give you more instructions on how to take the sample and where to send them. We are currently collecting data from SBA members with a view to mapping native bees in Scotland. Your sample and results will be added to the study.

I'll send the samples to you for your study Jimbo. Wish I'd seen this yesterday, i was passing your way on my way to Glenfinnan and could have dropped them off.

[gavin]

Hi Trounabout,

Jon is correct, you collect a sample of about 50 bees and place in a freezer. As you are in Lanarkshire and not far from Glasgow you can drop them off to me or can post them if preferred. If you e-mail me I can give you more instructions on how to take the sample and where to send them. We are currently collecting data from SBA members with a view to mapping native bees in Scotland. Your sample and results will be added to the study.

Hi Jimbo

Are you doing this on your own? There was talk at the bee breeding workshop last November of forming a group to do a new Scottish survey as a follow-up to the one by the Stoakleys. We didn't do anything about it of course, and folk have been committing their time to other activities.

Gavin

[Troutnabout]

In my origional post I got an answer to the 1st bit i.e. what kind of bee's do I have. Can anyone give me a bit of guidance on the 2nd question?

When I checked the 1st swarm yesterday, there was no queen, no eggs and no larvae in the hive. There was a few bits of pollen. The bees had filled some cells with nectar and probably the syrup I had given them. There was a queen cup on one of the frames. In total allowing for the bees that were out and about, I think they would cover about 3 frames, which seems to me to be a lot less than I put in there last week.

I checked the large hive thoroughly. There was no sign of a queen; no eggs and only a handful of sealed brood and very little pollen. There was plenty bees though, brood chamber was full as was the super I am also using as a brood chamber. The honey super was full of bees and still contains a good amount of honey some of which is sealed. In this hive I found a large number of opened queen cells and 2 further queen cells. One was actually hatching during my inspection and the other was sealed. I decided to put the frame containing the sealed QC into the original swarm and then watched the second queen hatch.

The 2nd smaller swarm in the nuc contained barely a frame of bees and no queen. I’ll combine this with the original swarm later this week

Have I done the right thing?

[Troutnabout]

Looks like I did the right thing . Checked the bees this morning. All three hives have laying qeens in them, along with stocks of nectar and pollen

[Neils]

Always nice to hear trout.