One of the pics I posted is of a colony that was a swarm 2 years ago March 15.
It came from a swarm/colony that came out of the woods several years past.
I did not re queen either one. even this one (the picture looking down on the bottom board entrance) that I posted earlier.
I have not been in it this year. It is 3 deep and one medium high. If the weather permits I am going in tomorrow and see what it looks like. I am expecting to find lots of queen cells.
I will be doing a #3 on it.
O. K. for the re queening part.
When we catch a swarm we don't have any history on the colony it came from.
whether from some one else's apiary or from the wild.
So we don't know the age of the Queen, she could be a Virgin, or several years old.
We don't know if the swarm super cedes after we hive them or not. Unless we do some very, very close
inspections in the beginning.
This is why it is advisable to re Queen new swarms as soon as possible. Gentle them down after about 6 weeks anyhow. then you have the Queens history.
After 6 weeks "this time of year" you can forget about the old workers, they'll be gone, and the workers will have the traits from the new Queen. If by chance, and it sometimes happens, they are worse, as for gentleness goes, well, new Queen again I guess :)
I just wanted to through this down and let you all kick it around.
I have never purchased a package, I have got some new Queens, but for some reason they never do as well as the off spring from my wild stuff.
go figure.
Hope all this ranting helps some one. ;) :) doak
Topic: swarms and requeening (Read 1329 times)