Subject: Re: Package Bee Blues (Swarming)

From: [email-masked] (Jeff Schlenker)
Date: Sat, 11 May 1996 01:52:28 GMT

Michael Humphrys <[email-masked]> wrote:

>Open questions:

>1. It's Monday (May 6) and the hive is still sealed.  We are planning
>   on removing the screening this afternoon.  Is this too soon, too
>   late, or about the right time?

Yea that should have been plenty of time.  How did it turn out?

>2. None of the beekeepers I talked with had ever heard of the workers
>   swarming without a queen.  Can anyone shed any light on this 
>   occurance?

This does happen quite often when the queen is in a cage... The bees will swarm,
expecting the queen to come with... However when they "realize" that the queen
isn't with them, they will go back to the hive...  They may do this several
times a day, actually, until the queen is out of the cage.

>3. Any idea what the substance on the queen might have been?  

The only thing I could guess is it was the candy that was put in the cage.  Did
you by any chance place the cage in the hive in such a way that the candy could
have melted onto her?

Another idea.... it's possible that the queen was bad, and the bees were
attempting to raise a new one in the cage... although I've never seen such a
thing.  But I suppose it's possible.  In that case the white substance would be
"royal jelly".

Jeff Schlenker
Hazel, SD USA

http://www.daknet.com/~jeffs