Sunday 8 September 2013

Fingers crossed - things might be more positive.

Weather is definitely turning cooler.  This morning's bike ride was distinctly cold, and we'd already had a couple of showers.  Temperature approx 13 degrees, but when the sun came out around midday it was pleasant enough to open the bees.

Today's plan was to follow up on the previous situation - see what had happened to the queen cells / supersedure cells and see if we could see evidence that a queen is laying and active.

Several points were I think tentatively good news.  Firstly, we saw the original queen (and didn't see any other queens).  Secondly, we saw grubs.  Since it's 6 days since we last opened the hive, it's highly significant that we've seen grubs. - When they fill the bottom of the cell prior to capping they have been there for about 8 days.  This means they must have been eggs around the time we last looked - indicating the queen was laying at that time. - I'm taking this as a very positive sign that the queen is OK and not permanently off colour.  In fact, there were a lot of grubs, and it seemed a lot of capped brood - and indeed, there seem to be more bees than previously though that might just be that it's not a particularly good flying day I guess.

The third point of interest was that ALL the supersedure / queen cells (of which previously about 5) were open. - We know that they were all sealed 6 days ago on 2nd September, so they have either hatched, or they have been torn down by the bees. - What has happened here I've no idea. - Either the virgin queen(s) hatched, and there is still a virgin somewhere in the hive along with her mother, or the existing queen killed the new queen(s), or the bees did either before or after hatching. - Comments welcome below.

Here you can see quite a few grubs / larvae just to the right of centre of the shot (shiny white things in the bottom of some of the cells.)



And here you can see one of the previous sealed queen cells is torn down - I guess it's being tidied away by the workers. - It's the bigger cell to the left of shot.  The one in the centre isn't so big and probably was never a proper queen cell.

An interesting thing I learned at the demo yesterday is that 'supersedure' queen cells tend to be built in the middle of the brood frames - perpendicular to the 'normal' direction of cells in the honeycomb. - This contrasts with 'swarm' queen cells which would tend to be built at the edges or the bottom of frames.  If this is true, the bees must have some reason for making the differently positioned cells - either something to do with temperature maybe, or the way the new queen's pheromone will affect the hive. - Clearly they know why they do it that way, but I don't.



So - in conclusion - we now have a hive which appears to have a laying queen, and the prior queen cells are not active.  On that basis, I added the second does of Apiguard varroa treatment which was supposed to be added 2 weeks after the first.  I 'hope' that if it were that which affected the queen previously they will now be more used to it, and it won't be so destructive this time.  There are as I said a 'lot' of bees, and there seems to be quite a lot of capped brood.  The 'super' is now heavy with 'honey' (probably mostly acutally syrup) with most frames filled and capped except where there's brood in the centre frames, so for now I'm quite a bit happier than I was the last couple of times I have examined the hive.

The only thing I saw this time which I've not seen before were just a couple of 'bald' brood.  Since there were only a few, I doubt this is anything to fret over.  You can see these partial cappings with the brood visible in the photo below.




I added the varroa floor again today and will count the mite drop at the next examination.

Far more relaxed this time round (me, not the bees).  I've sort of resigned myself that 'what will be will be', and that this is after all a learning experience.

OK - we will examine again in about a week or less and see what surprises they are trying to scare me with at that time!

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