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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Chris Cramer <chris.cramer AT gmail.com>
  • To: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] advice appreciated
  • Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:13:09 -0400

Hi Folks,

About 3.5 weeks ago, I checked on my one hive, which at the time consisted of
two deeps, and found that the the bottom deep was completely empty, the top
deep was packed with brood and there were swarm cells at the bottom of the
top deep. I added a medium super on top and decided to see what happens.

About a week later, the colony swarmed and I’ve been letting the bees do
their thing since then. I went in to check today, and found that the medium
super is full of capped honey, the top deep is largely full of capped honey,
and the bottom deep has a single queen cell (in the vertical middle, on one
side of an interior frame), no larvae/brood, and a small amount of capped
honey and many uncapped cells.

I suspect that what happened is that the swarm cells were damaged during the
inspection (they were bridging the two deeps), but the colony swarmed anyway,
leaving the bees to create a new queen from a single larva (does this seem
likely?). I’m assuming that the presence of the queen cell implies that
there is not a queen present in the colony. If I had a second colony, I
would borrow a frame of brood and see what happens. I’m going to add another
medium honey super.

Does anyone have suggestions on what I should do? I suppose I could look to
purchase a queen or I could see if I could borrow/buy a frame of brood. Any
other thoughts?

thanks
-chris


  • [ocba] advice appreciated, Chris Cramer, 05/06/2015

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