Mrs Fiddlesticks
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all these queen cells - down to conditions?Had a friend who is a beekeeper of a lot more years standing than us take a look in our hive this morning. I'd destroyed 3-4 queen cells when we looked last week. He found and destroyed a few more and found a newly hatched queen wandering round ( she's now safely marked) Original queen nowhere to be seen but lots of bees. We conclude that the bees tried to swarm but as our queen was a clipped one she got out of the hive but dropped to the floor and possibly came to grief and the workers, finding themselves queen less drifted back in to the hive.
Its worked to our advantage in that Steve and Tim in their plan to move the hive to the allotment will split the hive in to two, each with a queen and brood. So we'll end up with two hives by tonight and they'll be on the allotment site and not 3 miles away 
Jo - I remember you said you'd been destroying a lot of queen cells this year and Steve was saying that he went to a club apiary inspection and the guy there was saying there were a lot of queen cells about. Any sense this is a weather/conditions thing?
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jamanda
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I wonder if it is a response to last year being so dire. Our apiary suggests that many of the queens weren't mated properly leading to many colonies failing over Winter. Maybe they are trying to replace inadequately fertilised queens.
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lottie
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Our bees have been the same this year----they seem to be getting cunning hiding the queen cells---hence our swarm last week---going like demons in their new hive though---destroying queen cells usually just buys you time though if they've made their mind up.
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joanne
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I don't really know whether its the conditions or whether they do this normally - I've never dealt with Queen cells before this year
I'm hoping that the Queen cell in my 2nd hive is about to hatch today - It will then hopefully stop the problem I've had with drone laying - I'm going to go and take a quick look in a minute as they are all out flying really well this morning
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Mrs Fiddlesticks
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been up the plot first thing and done a bit of bee gazing and all looks well. We'll go up and give them a feed a bit later to help them build up.
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lottie
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Monday is clearly swarming day---last monday it was one of my hives---as far as I and the locals know I am the only beekeeper for a couple of miles---but just after lunch a neighbour came to tell me my bees had swarmed---they hadn't they weren't mine---they are now---didn't bother waiting round for scouts coming back as they wanted shut of them pdq--- we hived them just over an hour ago---for once these bees had read the book and it was a doddle. I've now no hives ready, just the boxes so making some frames is urgent just in case of more.
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Tavascarow
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I don't think its a reaction to a poor season last year, more a good one this year.
May & June have been mild here with plenty of days for nectar gathering & enough rain for the flowers to produce nectar.
Long dry summers are no good as flowering plants produce little nectar when the soil is dry.
The bees I'm working with now are smaller & take up less room than the high producers I used to have.
A spring summer like this one my old bees would have all been on double brood boxes & I would have still had some swarms.
When you check your hives next time check how much pollen & honey there is in the brood box.
If a lot of the outer frames are packed with stores take out a couple of frames & give to a weaker colony or a swarm & put in some new wax for the queen to lay in.
If the brood box is chocka & she can't find cells to lay in then swarming is the next stage.
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jamanda
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It has certainly been a wonderful year for wild flowers. On Sunday I reconnoitred my botany walk which I do at a similar time each year. Many things are still in flower which are usually well over, including a great big show of heath spotted orchids.
But some things haven't shown their faces at all yet, and I actually think they are going to be at more like at their proper flowering times than in recent years.
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