Invasion!

It turns out what I called bearding on Hive 1 was thought by Randy Oliver to be an usurpation swarm instead.  The queens must have fought it out with both perishing. Bottom line: queenless hive. So today I drove up to Randy’s bee yard to pick up a new queen bee.

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December 2010 issue of American Bee Journal, Dr. Wyatt A. Mangum describes the phenomenon of honey bee usurpation—the taking over of a healthy colony by a summer swarm.

 

I picked up a second year queen with attendants. The queen is encased in a clear plastic cage inside the red box. Attendant bees have also been placed inside during transfer.

 

Bees from Hive 1 are checking out their new queen.

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Before embedding the queen, I lifted each frame and scraped away all queen cells, hopefully preventing perilous fights between the new and emerging queens. I embedded her in some vacant brood comb with the cap to the cage is still on. Tomorrow I’ll check the hive. If the queen cage is all balled up with bees, then they have not yet accepted her. Otherwise I will remove the cap on the cage where the bees will then eat through a candy plug (think marshmellow) to free the queen. Once free, she’ll start laying eggs.

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For the record, this is Week 8, seventh hive check. Sting #6  🙂