Guilfordbeekeepers.org

I got a call late this afternoon about a cluster of bees about 15 feet from the hives at the Arboretum. I got the queen in a clip, but could not get the hand full of bees to settle. Even Swarm Commander could not get them to behave. I shook what number of dysfunctional bees I could into the cardboard nuc box I had, and brought them home. I went into another hive and took out 2 frames of capped brood and larvae along with nurse bees and put all into a regular nuc with a jar feeder on the inner cover and a robber screen on the entrance. Tomorrow afternoon I will check to see if the queen is still alive in the clip. If so, I will release her and wait to see if and how she functions with the more "rational" bees I put in with her.

It took about 2 rounds of boosting of 2 frames each time, but this queen is now laying a nice pattern and the nuc is building. One of our new beekeepers just had her very healthy hive swarm a week ago. We are going to keep an eye on requeening. If her hive is not successful at it, I plan on packing up this queen and we will introduce her and see if she can't get her new colony through the coming winter.