A lot has happened over past couple of days.
We carried on feeding the Nectans until Fri evening, by which time they had consumed almost 2 kgs sugar as 1:1 syrup.
I wasn't feeling too good on Sunday, when we had planned to have another look, so Jim inspected the hives on his own.
In The Lizards he saw a well formed, capped, queen cell which Mick and I must have missed in our quick inspection on Fri. He also observed that the bees seemed to be clustering in a ball and he was worried that they might be preparing to swarm. The bees were very active and bringing in pollen.
The Nectans, however were not so good. This is what he said:
"The new colony (Nectans) have a huge number of discarded drone larvae both inside and outside the hive, 100+. Inside the combs are light in weight and have little recent activity, virtually no stores. There is a comb of sealed brood and evidence of some (not many) larvae at varying stages. No eggs. Searched long and hard for a queen, but couldn't see her. Not too many bees in this hive so I'm pretty sure I would have see her. This hive has one or two bees returning with pollen every 4-5 mins, not active. Many drones hanging around without trying to get in."
We discussed our options and wondered if we should either move the queen cell, or the queen (if we could find her) to the Nectans. We were tending to think that the queen was possibly in the Lizard hive and that the cell was a swarm cell, not a replacement. At that point we were thinking that, as the cell was capped, it had probably been in the making since before the split. We were also worried that the Lizards might have been robbing the Nectans. We decided that we needed to get advice from Phil. Jim emailed him and this was part of his reply:
"Sounds like you need to fortify the Nectans from the Lizards. A simple way to do this would be to swap the hives over (not on your own!) so the flying bees reinforce the other one."
We were a bit thrown by this, until we thought it through, logically:
1) We realised that the queen cell could well be capped and be an emergency cell in response to the split. Queen cells are capped on the 8th day, the split was done 8 days ago and the egg would have been 1-2 days old then.
2) As there were uncapped larvae, at various stages in the Nectans, this indicates that the queen is probably there, as cells are usually capped on day 9 when the larvae is fully formed.
3) If we swop the hives, the flying bees from the Lizards' hive should go to the Nectans' hive. This would mean they would start bringing in supplies there instead and also would not be robbing them. As the Lizards have loads of supplies, they would be ok for a while and also, as they are strong, they would probably be able to ward off a bid to rob them.
4) If the flying bees mostly decamp to the Nectans' hive, the Lizards would probably have insufficient flying bees to swarm, if that was what they were planning.
So last night at 9.15 we did the swop and also gave the Nectans another feed of 300gms sugar as 1:1 syrup. Put corks in entrances to do the swop and Jim removed these this morning.
It's been very cool the last 2 days and when Mick went down at about 10 this morning there were just a few, slightly confused looking, bees flying around both entrances.
Keep your fingers crossed!
We carried on feeding the Nectans until Fri evening, by which time they had consumed almost 2 kgs sugar as 1:1 syrup.
I wasn't feeling too good on Sunday, when we had planned to have another look, so Jim inspected the hives on his own.
In The Lizards he saw a well formed, capped, queen cell which Mick and I must have missed in our quick inspection on Fri. He also observed that the bees seemed to be clustering in a ball and he was worried that they might be preparing to swarm. The bees were very active and bringing in pollen.
The Nectans, however were not so good. This is what he said:
"The new colony (Nectans) have a huge number of discarded drone larvae both inside and outside the hive, 100+. Inside the combs are light in weight and have little recent activity, virtually no stores. There is a comb of sealed brood and evidence of some (not many) larvae at varying stages. No eggs. Searched long and hard for a queen, but couldn't see her. Not too many bees in this hive so I'm pretty sure I would have see her. This hive has one or two bees returning with pollen every 4-5 mins, not active. Many drones hanging around without trying to get in."
We discussed our options and wondered if we should either move the queen cell, or the queen (if we could find her) to the Nectans. We were tending to think that the queen was possibly in the Lizard hive and that the cell was a swarm cell, not a replacement. At that point we were thinking that, as the cell was capped, it had probably been in the making since before the split. We were also worried that the Lizards might have been robbing the Nectans. We decided that we needed to get advice from Phil. Jim emailed him and this was part of his reply:
"Sounds like you need to fortify the Nectans from the Lizards. A simple way to do this would be to swap the hives over (not on your own!) so the flying bees reinforce the other one."
We were a bit thrown by this, until we thought it through, logically:
1) We realised that the queen cell could well be capped and be an emergency cell in response to the split. Queen cells are capped on the 8th day, the split was done 8 days ago and the egg would have been 1-2 days old then.
2) As there were uncapped larvae, at various stages in the Nectans, this indicates that the queen is probably there, as cells are usually capped on day 9 when the larvae is fully formed.
3) If we swop the hives, the flying bees from the Lizards' hive should go to the Nectans' hive. This would mean they would start bringing in supplies there instead and also would not be robbing them. As the Lizards have loads of supplies, they would be ok for a while and also, as they are strong, they would probably be able to ward off a bid to rob them.
4) If the flying bees mostly decamp to the Nectans' hive, the Lizards would probably have insufficient flying bees to swarm, if that was what they were planning.
So last night at 9.15 we did the swop and also gave the Nectans another feed of 300gms sugar as 1:1 syrup. Put corks in entrances to do the swop and Jim removed these this morning.
It's been very cool the last 2 days and when Mick went down at about 10 this morning there were just a few, slightly confused looking, bees flying around both entrances.
Keep your fingers crossed!
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