My nuc came on Tuesday, and I assembled it and hived my third and final swarm (which I've named Daffodil). A nuc is a five-framed hive, so half the size of a normal ten-frame box. Nucs usually don't overwinter, but it's possible that the swarm will grow and develop well enough to fill a full box. Mostly, though, the nuc is insurance: if I have an issue with another hive, I have a queen and additional workers that I could combine. If the Daffodil swarm ends up stronger than another, I can choose which queen I want. And if another queen dies for some reason, again, I have a replacement ready.
I opened all four hives today. The large original hive had dozens of newly emerged bees triangulating, all left over from before the swarm. The other three hives were out in force. We have a chilly, windy few days, and I think they were all thrilled to be able to forage. The swarmed hives looked remarkably low on bees, but I think that's because all the bees are older, and all capable of flight.
Something I should have mentioned earlier: why do bees swarm?
I'm not sure anyone knows definitively. Crowding appears to have something to do with it: had I put supers on, to let the bees gather and store honey, that would have, perhaps, prevented swarming. If I had monitored for queen cells, and split the frames into two parts once there were capped queen cells, that might have prevented it. If a queen feels like there's too many bees for the space, and no room to expand, bees swarm. But sometimes, despite all precautions, swarms just happen. (And, as I have heard, this is a year for swarming. The unseasonable warmth and incredible single blooming time probably contributed.)
As I understand it, when a queen feels like she has built up her dominion, so her larder is well stocked and her babies thriving, the workers build special queen cells, and feed the babies laid therein royal jelly.
The queen quits laying, and gets down to "flying trim" (which, usually, when she's laying, she has no opportunity to fly, as her abdomen is swollen with all the eggs. She lays about her weight in eggs every day during peak production: a fabulous feat). Then, when the weather is warm and sunny, she and half the hive eat as much honey as they can, and then leave, into the unknown.
They have three days to find a home before starvation kills them.
It's really an amazing act of faith, to leave the known and the safe, and go out to meet the future, without any reserves.
A few days later, the baby queen hatches. She soon goes on her matrimonial flight, drawing drones from miles around, who mate with her and die. After she is bred by ten or so drones, who give her all the sperm she'll need for her life, she returns to her hive and begins laying.
What was so unusual about my swarming, is that the first swarm went with the mature queen, taking half the original hive's bees. That usually is an end. But I had a baby queen then swarm with, perhaps, another half (now only a quarter) of the bees, and then another baby queen swarm with a smaller percentage of the bees (an eighth?), leaving a baby queen in the original hive.
The crimson clover around the farm is abuzz, and the hives themselves hum.
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