MEMBER BULLETIN BOARD > GREETINGS/TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF
Hello from Macclenny, FL
Michelle:
I learned what I know from books and online courses with no in-person experiences. We made swarm boxes, hung them, and surprise! some bees came last week. We just installed them into a horizontal Layens hive, but we have so many questions - that's why I'm here. The swarm is a late May North FL swarm. This seems like a super helpful forum. I'm not well-adjusted to forum layouts yet, but eager to take advantage of all the previous interactions here and maybe, one day, be helpful to someone else. :happy:
I'll list a couple issues here in case someone has any insight after reading my intro. If I need to make a separate post, let me know.
1. When we opened the swarm trap, there was a significant pile of wax pieces (not comb pieces) at the bottom of the trap. Surely this isn't normal. After spending 10 days in the swarm box, they only had a small piece of comb to show for it. What would cause this inability to build comb, instead dropping it to the floor? Could the Florida roaches/palmetto bugs be disturbing them (saw two in the trap)?
2. When installing the bees into the hive, we did find the queen, captured her in a clip, and placed her in the hive. In the process of relocating from the tree right down to the hive, the colony swarmed at least 3 times, trying to settle in the new hive. Is this normal or does it indicate a problem?
I have concluded as a newbie that this is a weak, late swarm and may not make it. But they might surprise me in their resiliency.
The15thMember:
Welcome to Beemaster, Michelle! :happy: Don't worry to much about the forum organization. Just post whatever you'd like where you think it would be best, and if something isn't to our liking, either myself or another moderator will move it and leave a link to the new location. No harm, no foul. :smile:
--- Quote from: Michelle on June 03, 2024, 05:36:54 pm ---1. When we opened the swarm trap, there was a significant pile of wax pieces (not comb pieces) at the bottom of the trap. Surely this isn't normal. After spending 10 days in the swarm box, they only had a small piece of comb to show for it. What would cause this inability to build comb, instead dropping it to the floor? Could the Florida roaches/palmetto bugs be disturbing them (saw two in the trap)?
--- End quote ---
Were these wax pieces scales directly from the bees' wax glands? Did you have any comb in the trap? A swarm that has bees producing wax should be able to make comb. But if the swarm sat camped out for a while and the bees were running low on honey in their crops by the time they finally chose your trap, they may have just not had enough energy and wax to build any more than the small comb they made. We have cockroaches and wood roaches here in NC, and I will often see them in underpopulated areas of a hive or between inner and outer covers, but they've never done any damage I'm aware of.
--- Quote from: Michelle on June 03, 2024, 05:36:54 pm ---2. When installing the bees into the hive, we did find the queen, captured her in a clip, and placed her in the hive. In the process of relocating from the tree right down to the hive, the colony swarmed at least 3 times, trying to settle in the new hive. Is this normal or does it indicate a problem?
--- End quote ---
What exactly do you mean by "swarmed"? Did you have the queen in a clip in the hive, and the bees returned up to the tree several times? Or did the bees exit the hive and return again without landing anywhere since the queen wasn't with them?
Ben Framed:
Welcome Michelle!
Terri Yaki:
Welcome, Michelle and good luck with your bees. Free bees are the best bees.
Kathyp:
It may be that this is a secondary swarm. Sometimes a hive will swarm multiple times and the late swarms often have virgin queens in them. That you found a queen argues against her being a virgin because they are very hard to spot, but there may have been another queen where the swarm had originally landed, or they are just going back because of the queen scent. Sometimes it takes them a while to settle and if the collection site is close to the landing site, they might not settle for a bit.
Were they starting to build comb in the tree? If so, that will attract them back to the spot. It would also explain the wax bits you found. If they were already building elsewhere, they were producing wax for that hive.
Did you try feeding them in the new box? This will often help anchor them in the hive box. I don't know what your flow is like where you are.
Welcome to beemaster. Poke around. Use the search feature. Jump in! :grin:
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version