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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #3414  by Adam Bee
 07 Jun 2019, 00:47
I guess I feel the same way as Jazz. On other sites there has been loud criticism of people not watching for or controlling swarms. (Bad beekeeper! No donut! No honey!)

To control swarms, there needs to be regular checks for queen cells. People say the best time to check for queen cells is every 7-9 days.

I’ve also read that important maintenance that has to be done has to be done, regardless of weather.

I’ve also heard “let them sit and stop bugging them”.

On my last inspection they were tetchy. I did find a tiny queen cup on an outside frame at the bottom. (I removed it.) They should have ample space if they use it. I last checked them on Thursday last week. I was looking forward to checking on them this weekend, but now it looks like rain for a few days.

It makes me nervous not to check at all for 17 days if I have to wait until *next* Saturday rather than *this* Saturday.
 #3415  by NigelP
 07 Jun 2019, 08:43
Queen cups are perfectly normal. I usually check if there is an egg in it...it can be a sign of swarming, but not always....
No need to knock them down they will only build more....it's when you find one filled with white Royal jelly and the sides getting elongated then it's time to worry.

Regarding 7 day inspection period....it's totally wrong. From an hatched egg to a fully capped queen cell takes 6 days...So 7 days is too long and your bees could have already swarmed. It should really be 5 day intervals...I think the 7 days comes from it's convenient to say Check every Saturday....or whatever day one isn't at work.
I know I use it ....Mondays are my usual inspection days....
 #3419  by Chrisbarlow
 07 Jun 2019, 09:48
Adam Bee wrote:
07 Jun 2019, 00:47
I guess I feel the same way as Jazz. On other sites there has been loud criticism of people not watching for or controlling swarms. (Bad beekeeper! No donut! No honey!)
The thing about beekeeping is there are so many ways to keep bees and bees can be quite forgiving.

You can be hands on and check every week and (try to) keep on top of swarming and treat as often as is possible and do everything that everyone else says to do. There is a polar opposite to that and you can check once in a blue moon and not care about swarms and not care about varroa treatment and not be bothered about getting a surplus off the honey. This is certainly a personal choice and shouldnt be critised.

I suspect the vast majority of folk are some where in between but is any style wrong, I suspect very few. . the irony of is to me, is that regardless of what style you adopt, you will still have bees die off periodically but some styles your bees will die off an aweful lot more.

My personal approach (at the moment, as I am always willing to listen to new ideas) is treat for varroa, feed pollen substitutes in Autumn, if I can inspect a box fairly regularly then inspect, if I dont think I can get to a box of bees weekly, then remove the queen excluder and give em plenty of space, (dont care if thats brood boxes or supers) , I do have buckfasts bees as they are very helpful in not swarming, to me they appear to swarm far less than any other type of bees I have had (which compliments my style of beekeeping). lastly, Enjoy the hobby.
 #3420  by Patrick
 07 Jun 2019, 09:55
Hi Adam

They are your bees and you are obviously keen to do right by them. I can’t speak for those on other forums ‘cos I don’t go on them, but inevitably you will sometimes get conflicting advice and trying to do “all of it” is impossible. Personally I applaud others on this forum admitting things that didn’t go according to plan. Happens to me all the time. If it all worked 1-2-3 i would have long since got bored by now.

Letting swarming occur by deliberate negligence is undesirable IMHO, but let’s not be too pompous about it, sometimes it still happens anyway - partly because few of the taught methods are 100% reliable.

As regards inspection periods, it is usually less of a rule and more of a pragmatic decision. Sometimes you wish you had looked earlier whilst other colonies you could have left alone for weeks - the problem being that without checking you don’t know which is which until you have the benefit of hindsight!

There are things (providing usable space in advance, clipping queens,
extracting twice a season etc) that reduce the likelihood or consequence of swarming attempts, but you can only do what you can. It’s pouring down today but I hope for a break later for a quick look at least one colony. If you need to go in just to check for cells for example, It’s perfectly possible to do in under 5 minutes - often much less. A this year nuc with a this year queen expanding into a full brood box with supers is probably a low risk. A three year old queen in a full brood box that has not raised swarm cells yet may well do so at anytime. Or not.,, :D

The fact you are asking questions demonstrates enough that you are a conscientious beekeeper, sure your bees are in good hands.
 #3422  by AdamD
 07 Jun 2019, 11:04
As has been pointed out, 7 day inspections are too long - if a colony can swarm before a queencell is sealed. So if you do an inspection at a weekend and find no queencells, and your opening the hive has messed about with the distribution of the queen pheromones so they start to produce queencells and lo and behold - swarming on Thursday or Friday!

To stop swarming - say after a colony has swarmed - the instruction of "destroy all but one queencell after 6 days" doesn't always work either as you often find decent queencells after that. Maybe in the cooler part of the hive. And you risk losing a swarm with your chosen queen and only then finding a few late queencells and a possible small queen to take over the colony.
 #3423  by Japey Edge
 07 Jun 2019, 11:10
The answers since my last post have been very informative and helpful to the newbie like me. Maybe I should've had a look in yesterday :roll:

Hopefully the weather won't be as bad as the forecast says this evening. I suspect they'll be fine as they have plenty of space. However, nobody told me bees are predictable. :lol:
 #3425  by Patrick
 07 Jun 2019, 12:30
To quote the great Lieutenant Columbo, "just one more thing.."

When starting out and with only a single or few hives, it is perfectly understandable you might carry out inspections more frequently than you consider necessary a few years later down the line with several colonies. It gives you handling practice that is invaluable and builds confidence. You may well be accused of fussing them - well, yah boo sucks.

Unless excessively done, the potential downsides are usually pretty minimal and the advantages in increased confidence are significant. As Chris rightly says, everyone makes their own choices - part of the role of a forum like this is to share what some of the choices people have found to work for them, where they keep their bees.
 #3447  by Japey Edge
 08 Jun 2019, 19:34
Carried out the inspection - somewhere between 11 and 13 degrees and cloudy - after days of rain, but at least there was none for the inspection. Bees weren't keen, although I don't think mine are going to win prizes for being gentle any time soon.

Saw larvae, capped brood and the queen. There were so many bees on the frames that I couldn't see many cells to check for eggs - also the lighting didn't help. I tried blowing on them to move them - I won't be doing that again any time soon (they got angry).

They've got plenty of brood - expanding on to another frame since last week. They're not drawing any more comb on the last of the 11 BB frames, but they have plenty of stores. I'm assuming this is them rationing due to the weather.
 #3458  by Adam Bee
 09 Jun 2019, 15:11
I did a quick inspection this afternoon. It’s amazing what a day makes. The bees were gentle in completely ignored me.

I had bought and prepped a smoker (used cardboard and I’ll post pictures in my smoker thread, but the residue was both frightening and disgusting). I’d also bought a pair of marigolds and wore nitriles in top...

... and I was completely ignored.

Never used the smoke.

It just sat there and smouldered.

I inspected 9 out of the 12 frames in the top box, found BIAS, the queen and some stores. The entire box was drawn, so they drew 4 (190mm) frames in 10 days, and the outermost frames had stores and the rest was brood.

The ladies had 12 drawn frames last inspection 10 days ago but were not moving down into a new box below the main B.B.. So, I swapped the two outer frames on each side of the old top box and moved them down and brought the middle 4 frames back up.

I only looked through the top bars, down into the lower box. The middle 4 frames (moved down last time) we’re heavily covered in bees and they were beginning to draw out the two frames on either side.

As I’d seen the queen, there was BIAS, there was ample space, I hadn't seen a queen cell, frames were being drawn - I didn’t make a meticulous inspection and closed them up.

So, glad the weather held for a quick check. Now I won’t worry for a few more days.
 #3464  by NigelP
 09 Jun 2019, 18:19
Japey Edge wrote:
08 Jun 2019, 19:34
They're not drawing any more comb on the last of the 11 BB frames,
They won't...you need to move that frame in so it's between the last frame of brood and the frame with pollen or stores on.
If they haven't drawn that out then they still have tons of space.
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