Combining colonies

On last inspection I realised that one of my colonies wasn't going anywhere useful. This is the one that had a drone laying queen, and had made both what appeared to be a queen cell and an elongated 'drone queen' cell. I couldn't see any eggs or larvae, so there was no active queen and, fortunately, no laying workers either. A test frame from another colony had shown they were eager to produce a new queen - but it's getting a bit late in the late in the year, and it would be mid-September before the colony had its' own foragers.

The brood box was also top-heavy with drones which were clambering over each other on all surfaces, so much so that I suspected that this hive was attracting all local drones that had been evicted from their home colonies. (I've read that this can happen, but have never before seen evidence for myself.)

There were three things I could do:

A bad beekeeper delays a swarm

Bees are precious this year because too many colonies were lost during last winter and the cold, late, spring. Colonies that made it through aren't without problems.

Many local beekeepers are reporting that their 'last year's queen' has been superseded or has simply vanished - you will recall that last year was so wet that mating flights were few and far between, so mating was poor.

What have previously been easily-contained colonies of 'local bees' have been swarming. I have caught one swarm in my garden, have been called to collect a swarm in a garden adjacent to another local beekeeper - who is on holiday - but the swarm took off just before I arrived. That beekeeper had caught an earlier swarm just before going away.

This is mirrored within my small apiary. On the first inspection after I fortnight of cold weather I found one colony had lost their queen - there was no sign of either fresh brood or queen cells. One has been split, which I'll describe in another post. One of the colonies is currently superseding, but is continuing to build up rapidly so I need to keep a careful eye on it.