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Tuesday 1 June 2010

Major trauma / excitement

I am off to India on business for a few weeks, so I needed to hand over my hives to friend E to look after while I am away.

We inspected the hive at D's and found it to be queenless and full of ferocious bees (because of their queenlessness).

I drove there in my open top car and had to drive away after the inspection in full protective gear. Stopping a few hundred yards away to take off our headgear. We didn't want to frighten the natives.

Returning later that day, we did an "artificial swarm" because there was one swarm cell and numerous supersession cells. We put the swarm cell and one supersession cell into the new hive (along with nurse bees), and left the rest in the original hive (with their own supersession cells).

Heaven knows what will be the outcome. I will know when I return. I think we should leave them alone for a few weeks to sort themselves out.

2 comments:

  1. I love the vision of a beekeeper fully kitted speeding an open top sports car through country lanes with a swarm of bees in tow. Excellent.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ditto on Kezie's thoughts...lol!

    Hope all works out and that there are viable Q's in those cells.

    ReplyDelete

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