Greetings to all:
long story short I brought back a swarm from another city that had
built comb on a three inch branch.
that unit was the size of a large beach ball complete with honey and
lots of brood. The queen was caged -just lucky to get her
When we got back all was sorted out and the queen released yesterday
late morning
Went to take honey off three hours later from other hives and saw mega
bees arriving at the outer hive where a Russian breeder queen was
Went back to the out of town hive and it was empty
sure enough all these buckfast/Italian critters were invading the
Russian hive
I looked down in the grass and saw a light coloured queen, it was the
one from the swarm
I proceded to rip apart the hive and found it was on the verge of also
swarming
I shook some of the bees into the grass and a cluster of bees formed ,
under that was a black Russian queen
I bagged her and sheared off all the swarm cells only to find one with
the queen emerging
so I had wire tubes handy with wine corks for the ends and that one
came out of the cell and walked right into the tube.
Got the whole works put together with the brood and frames from the
abandonded hive on top of this one.
Then I saw another cluster about a hand full of bees on the outside of
the put together hive and pocked at it.
Bagged another queen from that one.
So
why did the swarm take over this other hive?
was it because it was also about to swarm and confuse and excited /in
disarray?
no fighting what so ever had taken place
will be giving things a chance and then I'll be looking for that marked
breeder queen.
I'm banking all the queens except one in the top box cause it came
handy for a queenless nuc that was nearby
Walter
Ontario
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