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Thu, 6 Jun 1996 23:50:14 PDT |
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---------------Original Message---------------
> Will bees cluster even without a queen?
Yes. They cluster for the company of other bees.
> Will the bees left behind cluster back on the branch
without a
>queen?
Shawna Roberts
Gypsy Bees
Hollister, CA
Last year after 20 years beekeeping I encountered my first
queenless swarm. It was a ragged, flighty mass of bees covering
the corner of a house roof. It was certainly not a cluster. Just
like the difference between the yolks of fried eggs in a pan when
one has broken! It took me a while to realise there was no queen
but they refused to stay in their cardboard box after several
attempts to get them in over about an hour an a half. I went home
and caged a queen from a nucleus hive. I placed her, still in the
cage, with a few bees from the swarm in the upside down box on an
old bed sheetspread on the ground near the swarm. In twenty
minutes all the bees had flown down into the box. I wrapped them
up and took them home. I gave the queen back to the nucleus and
united the swarm with another colony.
NB A box with a swarm in it must always be carried upside down.
Bees always hang and try to climb upwards. Collecting bees in a
bag or pillow case seems to be making life unecessarily difficult.
Follow the bees' insincts. It's easier for them and us.
PS Plastic containers, bins, boxes or bags are disastrous for
bees; no ventilation; slippery condensation from their respiration
and static chages on the surface which makes them very unhappy.
Glyn Davies, Ashburton, Devon. UK
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