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Anonymous
Panicking Beekeeper! Help... 2016-07-28 15:18:26 Post No. 2177438
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Panicking Beekeeper! Help... 2016-07-28 15:18:26 Post No. 2177438
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I usually don't visit /an/, but I've come for help. I've very recently become a beekeeper! (Hooray?)
So, I built my own Top Bar hive from plans off of the internet and two days ago, I captured a swarm of honeybees off of a friend's back porch. I put them into a cardboard copy paper box and transported them to my empty hive. Now I'm panicking, because I never saw the queen when I was capturing the swarm. The bees stayed in the cardboard box during the capture, none of them were trying to fly back to the spot they had swarmed on, and they're actually building new comb in my hive as of right now. But the problem is, I'm afraid they might be queenless. I'm totally clueless on how to spot the queen, as I've never done it before.
What should I do? Should I buy a mated queen and insert her into the hive? Should I just let nature take its course, wait it out, and hope for the queen to be in the hive?
>pic related, it's the swarm in the box the day of the capture
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>>2177438
the queen is notably larger. just let things run their course.
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The queen is a little bigger but will be hard to spot in a big clod like that. If they don't have a queen they might disperse or slowly die but they should be fine.
Give them a couple weeks to let them settle in and check back. Try not to micromanage too much.
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>>2177438
That's a big swarm
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>>2177457
for u
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Won't they just crown a new queen?
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Why in the hell would you go out and just get a shitload of bees? It's as if you want a stinger in your dick.
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>>2177548
They're honeybees, and docile ones. When I put them into their new hive, they were not aggressive at all.
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>>2177455
Thank you, I plan to check on them in 3 weeks' time, but I'm fraught with worry.
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>>2177462
kek
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>>2177558
if you don't see any eggs in a few weeks you can get some egg cells from an established hive and they should produce a queen
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>>2177565
Or he could just buy a queen and have better chances. You can check the first comb they build 4 days after you hive them for eggs/larva. If the queen is there which she should be or the bees would of left your box when you were capturing them.
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>>2177546
I'm sure you're not being all that serious but bees really can raise a new queen from the ashes IF they have freshly laid brood to raise themselves.
Becoming queen is all about what you're fed when you're little here and whether or not you can beat up all the other queens around you.
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>>2177558
Being a new beekeeper is like becoming a parent of a million tiny venomous children with the same level of excitement regardless.
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