Uh oh!!
Not my pic but it's close... Found a swarm cell in hive #3 yesterday. Just one. I caught all the others but this one slipped by, probably because it was up a little on the side and not on the bottom of the frame. Argh. Even after pulling those three brood frames out a couple of weeks back. I had to pull it out and make up a nuc on the spot: I used three frames of brood plus one more from Cam's hive and an empty frame.
So now I have five hives in the backyard! Probably three more than I need. If this new nuc produces a laying queen, I'll have to find a home for it. If it goes queenless, I'll just re-combine it back with the mother hive later. Any honey frames they produce can go in the bank. The main goal is to keep the big hive from swarming. Can't wait til swarm season is over! Filling up honey supers is way more fun than checking frame after frame and looking at all the queen cups.
the book I am looking over. allan. keeping bees in towns and cities by Luke Dixon. more of a general intro than specifics.
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