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Author Topic: Funny how bess don't always do what you expect them to do  (Read 1811 times)

Offline specialkayme

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Funny how bess don't always do what you expect them to do
« on: March 13, 2010, 12:49:14 pm »
About three weeks ago I took a frame of brood with the queen and put it in my indoor observation hive. The remaining frames I put on an existing hive, and used the newspaper method to combine them.

We had a few cold nights since then, and I decided to check on them today. I went through the top box, expecting to see little activity, and I found a few broken supercedure queen cells. I kept looking and I found a small queen in the upper box. The lower box also had a few broken queen cells, and two cells still intact. I wasn't able to find a single egg in either box, but I was able to find a handful of capped worker brood (no drone brood), but not much (I'm thinking it was left over brood from the former queen).

I was ecpecting to see the two colonies merge, but instead I"m thinking that the queenless hive attacked and killed the queen in the established hive, then started to raise their own queen. Problem is, there arn't any drone brood in the area (although there are a few feral hives). I know they didn't swarm, it's too early for that around here.

Do you think the small queen was a virgin queen? Where do you think I can go from here? Add a frame of eggs from a different hive and hope for the best? Or just sit back and watch what happens?
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Offline iddee

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Re: Funny how bess don't always do what you expect them to do
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2010, 01:02:46 pm »
Wait a week and check again. There are drones in the area. If no eggs in a week, then add a frame of eggs, if available.
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Offline specialkayme

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Re: Funny how bess don't always do what you expect them to do
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2010, 01:12:28 pm »
Quote from: iddee on March 13, 2010, 01:02:46 pm
There are drones in the area.

I wasn't aware :) I was just going off of what my hives have, and they have zero drones.

Thanks for the help Wally. I'll recheck in a week.
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Offline doak

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Re: Funny how bess don't always do what you expect them to do
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2010, 01:16:09 pm »
I would think it is a little early in our area to  be making such a move.JMHO. :)doak
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Offline JP

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Re: Funny how bess don't always do what you expect them to do
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2010, 01:18:46 pm »
Hey don't feel bad, I dated a Bess once also, never did what I expected her to do either. You just never know with those girls.


...JP  :-D
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Offline specialkayme

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Re: Funny how bess don't always do what you expect them to do
« Reply #5 on: March 13, 2010, 07:59:22 pm »
Haha, I didn't even notice the spelling error.
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Offline Natalie

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Re: Funny how bess don't always do what you expect them to do
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2010, 09:47:48 pm »
Funny jp, I thought to myself, who is bess and what exactly does he expect that poor thing to do. :-D
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