Queen Anne: 68.4 lbs (+7.3 lbs from last week, not counting weight of additional box)
Today I learned more about "balling" behavior. I'm not sure if what I saw was balling or just a secondary swarm from the swarm I caught. We're about 90% sure that the queen we saw in this pile was not the queen we originally saw when we caught the swarm. So it looks like we may have picked up 2 queens and this pile of bees was looking for a new home and protecting the queen when we discovered it.
Unfortunately this queen's wings are very chewed up and she can't fly, which explains why they're clustering on the ground. I retrieved a bait hive and they actually moved into it. But the colony is so small I don't think they have any chance of survival. This is really more of a chance for me to observe some interesting bee behavior and just watch to see what happens. I'm not hoping to get a 3rd hive out of this. If anything I'm hoping to preserve the queen just in case she is the only one and the primary swarm is queenless.
Video Link
I'm adding a second brood box and using the "pyramid up" method of encouraging the bees to move up into and use the second box. This is part of unlimited broodnest management. More information is available here:
BushFarms.com - Unlimited Broodnest
HoneyBeeSuite.com - Unlimited Broodnest
Video Link
Video Link
No comments:
Post a Comment