re: The 2021 Garden Thread

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Columbia

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Got a bee question for you. So, I installed my bee package on April 4th. Yesterday, they swarmed. That’s less than 10 weeks. I used the 80% rule and added boxes when needed. I am two deeps and one super high already. I added the super 2 weeks ago. Didn’t see any signs of swarm prep when I looked in. Everything I’ve read seems to say it’s pretty unheard of for a package colony to swarm in the first year. Have you ever heard of this happening? Was my colony just kicking that much arse?

I opened the box today and there were a few swarm cells. One was chewed open with a dead queen inside. And we were able to hear a queen piping somewhere in the brood box. So we seem to have a virgin queen roaming the box. We didn’t bother digging further into the box after that. Especially since the bees were acting extra aggressive and stung me on the hands 4 times. I just can’t believe this colony swarmed after less than 10 weeks. I was in no way prepared for it.