I think I need to start this blog entry with an apology. I have been remiss in my duties as a blogger. I started a new job in July leaving me less opportunities for online time. I am sorry for not keeping you all up to date on my poor long suffering bees and the meanderings of my mind. To try and make up for it (and because this blog post is quite light pictures) here is a photo of a bee taken at The Eden Project in cornwall.
The combine of the queenless brewery bees and boudica's hive seemed to go well. There was certainly no bad behaviour externally that suggested the colony was undergoing internal struggles. I left them alone for a full two weeks before sticking my nose in for check up. They were no more defensive than usual and I noticed all the comb from the brewery bees was empty. All the stores were gone, presumably moved. More surprising though was all the drone brood was gone too. Looking at the comb which contained the brood I noticed it had been chewed in. This may have been bees harvesting the wax to use else where but there were small white blobs on some cell edges (not varroa btw). On one of the combs that contained younger brood when I put them in, there were a few larvae with the cell chewed down around them (so they stuck out) with workers nipping at them! Admittedly I am not that experienced but I have never seen anything like this. The colony has appears to have decided that the drone brood was just unacceptable. Why bother to wait and have to evict the drones when you can eat them and get a bit of protein into the bargin. I didn't disturb the brood nest at all and removed the crosscombed bars from the brewery bees hive.
I hope to do a proper inspection this weekend and update on all the hives so stay turned.
No comments:
Post a Comment