The Bees - Two New Queens with their Swarms

Two New Queens with  their Swarms

Last weekend we picked up our new bees.  Each box of bees came with a can of nutrient solution, and a little box with the queen in it, suspended in the box.  We have Top Bar hives, so we watched about 5 videos online to refresh us as to how to hive the bees and the process went very smoothly.  The bees were calm and sweet and the queens were each set loose in their respective hives without incident.

In one hive the bees quickly and quietly formed an enormous ball around the queen.  They were very inactive and almost all stayed in the hive.  The few that were stuck in the box found their way into the hive and disappeared. Some came out to drink and a couple drowned in the water pan.  But the first hive was very quiet.

The second swarm was much more acrive.  From the beginning there was a lot more general activity, buzzing around, going in and out.  But everything seemed fine.  It was a warm afternoon with an abrupt weather change on the way.  Towards evening, I photographed the insides of each hive.

Above is the second hive on the first evening.  About 3/4 of the bees are gone.  

 

The two photos above show two bee balls in the first hive. 

It looked to me as if the two queens had both settled in the first hive and that most of the bees in  both boxes had followed them in there.  I don't know why they would do this.  The queen that we put in the first hive was smaller than the one that we put in the second hive, but they both looked active and healthy. 

Update 4/16

I asked a colleague beekeeper about what I had observed and he said he would just leave them alone and let them sort it out.  I was relieved to hear that because the weather had been very cold, wet, and unsettled and openning up the hive and trying to locate the queens and stir things up didn't seem like a great idea to me either.  So we left them to their own devices.

Update 4/17

We have had another big rain/ice/snow event and there are supposed to be blizzard conditions tonight, so my husband checked the hives through the windows without opening them.  It was dark, but he could see no bees in the second hive.  There were still two bee balls in the first hive, but one was on the floor and one was on the ceiling.  Having the queen go to the floor does not seem like a good sign.  I guess time will tell.  We insulated both hives well, but it has been very cold.  And I am not sure where these bees came from.  We got  them from a supplier, but they were shipped in from somewhere; probably someplace warmer than it is here.  

Update 4/25

We had wind chills below zero.  We lost both swarms.