Bees and Beekeeping:Past Present -Colony Usurpation (Takeover): Situations that Stall the Takeover Process Part 2

摘要

In the previous article, we witnessed a usurpation swarm nearly take over a frame hive. Here is another near takeover. I also include the events that would have happened in replacing the colony's queen (called the resident queen) with the usurpation queen. (The colony being taken over is called the host colony.)The usurpation swarm lands near the entrance the way we saw in the previous article. The entrance configuration may force the swarm to enter the host hive without the bees first gathering for a mass rush through the entrance. In my bee house that houses30 single-comb observation hives, I sometimes have an extra observation hive with multiple combs. The hive has an entrance on the vertical wallwith only a small alighting board. When a usurpation swarm tried to invade this hive, the bees encountered various obstacles.