Laurence Edwards checks a bee colony three weeks after splitting it. He finds eggs and larvae indicating a mated queen, but also discovers chalkbrood, a fungal disease, and too much capped honey limiting laying space. The split is thriving overall, though he'll need to monitor the disease.
I did an artificial swarm on this colony 3 weeks ago. This was the split. In today's video, we're going to go inside, see how they're getting on, see if we can find the queen, see if she's mated, and then maybe add some additional space if all is well. So this is what the colony is looking like. Always can be a little bit deceiving on an artificial swarm when you open it up because you look at that and think, wow, that is really, really good looking. Very happy with the amount of bees. Surely there's going to be a mated queen in there. But actually, because you put So much capped brood in there. All you're really seeing there is all of that capped brood that's emerged over the last 2 or 3 weeks. I've opened them up before, sometimes like this, and there's no queen, or she's a dud, or she's gone drone laying already. Let's get in though. I've got high hopes for this one. See if we can find the queen, see if we can find any brood. So first frame that we've got out is very, very packed with honey. I was going to say something else then, but wow, that is a heavy frame full of capped stores. Doesn't bode well. I don't like it when I see lots of honey on the first few frames because it means that they're not keeping the space open in order for the queen to go and lay it. However, we will persevere and we'll see what else we can find. Yeah, we've got another frame full of stores here, so hopefully they've not gone rogue. Queen's gone off and just left loads of bees and they're just packing away the honey. Let's get in, see if we can find another frame. Third frame is also 100% honey. Really, really heavy. They're definitely not going to starve. Now this frame here looks a lot better. Not too much honey in it, but we have got eggs. Eggs and larva, always good to see, but it doesn't mean anything. If you've got a drone-laying queen, you will just get eggs and larva, and then when they cap it all over, you'll see that it's drone brood. Hopefully you can see that there's some eggs in there. Always difficult on the camera to get the angle right. Lots of bees though, not too many drones. Fingers crossed we can find ourselves a nice frame of capped worker brood. So another frame of eggs, really good. When you see a few frames of eggs like this, I'm a lot more confident now that we are going to find a frame of worker brood if the timings are right. And wow, yet another frame of eggs. That's crazy to see so many eggs. Obviously a very well-mated queen. Don't tend to find that they lay up 3 or 4 frames of drone brood. They just kind of spatter it out a little bit all over the place. I'm confident now that we've got a mated queen in here, but I still wouldn't give it the rubber stamp until I find that queen and I see worker brood. They're the 2 things for me. To be honest, you don't even really need to see the queen. I just like to see the length of her just to double-check. If I see worker brood in a good pattern, I'm happy that she definitely mated. This is quite a nice frame though. Again, lots of brood in there all the way around, little ring of stores, good amount of pollen. Let's get to that next frame and see if we can find some capped worker brood. Right, we found some capped worker brood. Little bit of chalk brood in here, which is a bit gutting, but I will give the queen a chance to kind of rid that of herself. If not, we're going to have to requeen, and we might have to shook swarm because there is quite a bit of chalk brood in this one, which is not good. But you know, local matings, you kind of get what you're given. If there's some drones up in the air that are very chalky, then you just have to take what you're given. Still not found the queen, but I will go through, see if I can find her. See if we can find any more frames as well. So no sign of the queen. I'm not gonna continue looking for her 'cause I've seen what I need to see. Good brood pattern, lots of eggs, lots of bees. This has been a successful artificial swarm and this colony now will grow up into a big strong colony. Just gotta keep an eye on that chalkbrood.
