Some advice please?
The weather over here in the UK has been hit and miss and unfortunately has not been good at the weekends and had prevented me from doing a full inspection.
Last Sunday we had a bit of a heatwave but was prevented from opening up as my neighbors were all out in the sun. The next thing is that the bees came flying out in their thousands and created panic to the neighbors. They were about to swarm I am sure. After about 30 minutes, they all made their way back into the hive and on inspection, I found the queen and a few workers on the floor below the hive. Now the mistake!!!
Not thinking, I placed the queen (clipped) near the entrance and she ran back inside. After having read a handbook, I am under the impression that as her wings were clipped, she would not have left until a new queen had emerged? I think if they aren't clipped, she leaves when the queen cell is capped?
Anyway, I opened the hive the following day and destroyed the other queen cells. I wanted to do an "artificial swarm" but could not locate the old queen as the bees were mad!
Everything seems quite normal and I am waiting for a break in the weather to do a full inspection. My question is, what do you all think has happened in the hive? Do you think a new queen may have hatched? Could this queen have swarmed? The old queen-what may have happened to her?
Any advice on what to do when and look for when I do open up would be appreciated.
many thanks.
Topic: Big mistake??? (Read 3016 times)