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Swarming Beard Question
Ben Framed:
When we find a bearding situation which may also be a swarming situation, will we find the queen on the outside of the box in the beard? Or does she wait until the exact time of the swarm and leave or come out of the box with the swarm?
jtcmedic:
--- Quote from: Ben Framed on June 11, 2021, 06:33:29 pm ---When we find a bearding situation which may also be a swarming situation, will we find the queen on the outside of the box in the beard? Or does she wait until the exact time of the swarm and leave or come out of the box with the swarm?
--- End quote ---
that?s a good question
All my hives are bearding no but due to heat and a little bit of a dearth
Ben Framed:
Thanks Jc, I have the same situation at my yards. Some more bearded than others, but one in particular that has an astronomical amount of bees on the outside. I checked it today thinking I might find capped QC but not so, they still had plenty room, I have been providing more room this year than my second two springs. But while I was thinking about it I was wondering if anyone here knew the answer to the Question. Thanks for your reply.
The15thMember:
I don't know the answer, but I'd feel pretty confident about "it depends". :wink: :cheesy: You know how bees are, just when we say they do it this way, they go and do it that way. :happy:
Bee North:
I had a hive about to swarm with capped cells last season.
I didnt have the hardware to make splits so I removed the cells and caged the queen in a large full frame size cage to give me time.
The next day the hive swarmed. They started bearding early in the morning and then later that day swarmed... only to return an hour later realizing they didnt have the queen!
On this occasion they bearded without the queen...however if the queen wasnt locked up perhaps she would have joined them.
What I do know is none of my other hives were bearding that day and the queen didnt trigger the bearding prior to swarming because she was locked up!
Sorry I havnt answered the question Ben but perhaps I provided clue.
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