Bees at Solstice

Things had been going along rather smoothly in the hives for a while, so I restrained myself from gushing to you all about how fuzzy and buzzy the bees were. The Russians are still lagging a bit in the comb and brood building department, but it sounds like they are still normal. I’d been comparing them to my overachieving Italians, who have four boxes to the Russians’ two.

But now the Italian vigor may present me with a snag. Upon my most recent inspection, I found several “swarm cells”, two of which had queen larvae in them. The bees will prepare to swarm when they think they are getting crowded, or are building fast enough to soon become crowded. So they build some special queen cells, and start breeding a few queens.

According to a beekeeping friend, I may need to split the hive to keep them from swarming. Oh boy, three hives! At this point I have two or three weeks’ grace, because I destroyed the occupied swarm cells. They have probably started some more, and the new queens will emerge 21 days later. I’ll have to split the hive before that, so that I don’t lose Boudicca in a swarm. At least I have some friends who will take her and her entourage for a few weeks. A split hive needs to be separated for a while so that the splitees don’t return to the old hive.

I might also be able to avoid a swarm by letting Boudicca continue laying eggs in the topmost box. Right now I have a screen, called a queen excluder, between boxes 3 and 4. Box 4 was supposed to be for honey (for me), but I might have to wait until box 5. I’m waiting for an answer from my friend on that question.

With all the reports in my local bee group of swarming, I suppose it’s natural that I would also have one. I suppose it’s a sign of a hive’s success. The sign of a beekeeper’s success might be to recognize the swarm plans and take preemptive action. Wish me luck!