Artificial swarm but cannot find the Queen?

I have a hive with a clipped and marked Queen. The 2 supers were filled with bees this am so I added a 3rd to give space and avoid a swarm.
However on opening the brood box; again filled with bees I found 6 Q cells so I immediately made preparations for an AS but I could not find the Q.
I went through the brood box 3 times back to front etc. Having no success I split the frames into 3 pairs in a spare brood box and then examined the other 3 pairs looking particulary in the dark sides. Eventually out of desparation I did an AS of a type leaving 3 original frames in the original brood box and 8 in the old hive alongside filling up with frames and foundation in both cases. Replaced the Q excluder and then the 3 supers.
Has the Q vanished and supersedure was taking place and if so why so many Q cells and what else might I have done? Any ideas?

Could you tell us if the queen cells where capped, if they were the queen is dead in the grass somewhere and the bees have returned to the hive after attempting to swarm, not much point in an AS reunite the bees and remove all except 1 queen sell

http://www.wbka.com/pdf/a012queencells.pdf

please reed this, you might find it useful

Yes the Q cells were capped. Thank you for your reply ;very feasible

REDWOOD said:

Could you tell us if the queen cells where capped, if they were the queen is dead in the grass somewhere and the bees have returned to the hive after attempting to swarm, not much point in an AS reunite the bees and remove all except 1 queen sell

http://www.wbka.com/pdf/a012queencells.pdf

please reed this, you might find it useful

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Leaving just the one QC with no backup is a bad idea as it might be defective or void and you cannot assume it is viable. Leave at least 2 and the Qs will sort it out as to who is to be crowned.

Arfermo said:

Leave at least 2 and the Qs will sort it out as to who is to be crowned.

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Yes,they will sort it out okay... and one of them will very likely leave with a swarm,being as the bees are in swarming mode anyway.

Agree with Hivemaker. They will go with the first queen to emerge. Make a split for insurance.

with Hivemaker and RAB

Leaving one or two QC's may be a matter of hive numbers. As I have more bees than I need, then I will always only leave one but if I had only one or two hives I might leave two. (Probably still wouldn't.)
Cazza

If you have a hive full of bees as they HAVEN'T swarmed yet to lose numbers, then you will more likely get more than one swarm with multiple queencells. I don't agree Arfermo.

If were to do an A/S in the traditional sense and then swap the parent hive to the other side of the A/S a week later, then there are no flying bees to speak of so a chance of multiple swarms is so much less. I personally would make a nuc up with one queencell as an insurance policy as bunbury has done. One queencell per box.

So.. I'm with Hivemaker, RAB and Tony.

Tony. I haven't forgotten your CD. Well I had, now remembered again. I'll get it to you!

Hebeegeebee said:

Tony. I haven't forgotten your CD. Well I had, now remembered again. I'll get it to you!

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LOl Adam!!

The first thing is were there eggs and young grubs visible?

Before going to great lengths in queen finding it is a good plan to look for the evidence that says she was there very recently?

Also there is no hard and fast rule that says if there are sealed cells there has been a swarm. Just not so.

PH

Poly Hive said:

Also there is no hard and fast rule that says if there are sealed cells there has been a swarm. Just not so.

PH

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Mine had multiple sealed cells but the queen was still there. They waited until I'd performed the AS before they decided to go

I had one lot go April last year with no QCs at all. I caught them.
Six days later there were proper swarm cells in the box.

tonybloke said:

LOl Adam!!

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I hope that's not a 'Cameron' response!

FreeFall said:

Mine had multiple sealed cells but the queen was still there. They waited until I'd performed the AS before they decided to go

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Seen that too. Q/Ex under the A/S for a few days, then check for queencells before removing it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tonybloke
LOl Adam!!
I hope that's not a 'Cameron' response!
__

LOL!

Thank you all for your informative replies which have been most helpful and particulary to Arfermo for the splendid link. The weather here in Shrewsbury was not conducive for hive opening today but tomorrow sounds much better so action stations about 1000 hours. Incidentally if you ever want a wonderful weather site try AccuWeather.com all you have to do is to put in your location ie home town and Bingo!

Hivemaker. said:

Yes,they will sort it out okay... and one of them will very likely leave with a swarm,being as the bees are in swarming mode anyway.

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The first Q to emerge usually does-in any other potential Qs in any other remaining capped QC cells and there is only one other in the instance described - so my original answer stands imo!!! She will then wait a few days for a mating flight and, according to what I see in my hives, there are enough mature drones around to give her a good 'un too.

bunbury said:

Incidentally if you ever want a wonderful weather site try AccuWeather.com all you have to do is to put in your location ie home town and Bingo!

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Best weather forecast site I have found is the Norwegian weather service at Yr.no , there is an English version as well as Norwegian languages. Advantage over most others is that they do an hour by hour for the next 48 and a longer term for 10 days. Further out is more uncertain but it's good for trends. I like the way the rainfall for instance is given as the mm expected range, most others charge extra for the detail and dumb down the general forecast.

The same data is available as an android widget called AIX weather, the next 24 hours as a temperature chart, cloud symbols and rainfall bar graph. Really useful for planning inspections.

The Norwegians use the same data from worldwide weather stations as everyone else. Their detailed modelling is centred on North West Europe including the UK. I find the results are quicker if you forecast for the nearest actual weather station, it doesn't have to interpolate.

Eventually out of desparation I did an AS of a type
The first Q to emerge usually does-in any other potential Qs in any other remaining capped QC cells and there is only one other in the instance described - so my original answer stands imo!!!

Arfermo,

Your post may well stand but not on very firm foundation I would suggest. Just think about it - carefully.

It is likely these bees had already swarmed and the clipped queen was already lost, with the swarm returning to the hive. There was no indication as to whether any or all the queen cells were capped, but it was evident that the OP could not find any trace of a (clearly, from the OP) marked queen.

Only weakening the hive marginally and what with another week of brood emerging before a queen emerged there would be still a lot of bees in the colony. In that situation, (clipped queen lost), they are virtually certain to swarm with the first queen to emerge. They are already in swarming mode and have been thwarted at the first attempt. Further, in the unlikely event of the marked queen still being there, with the bees in swarming mode, they would have gone anyway at some point.

Sorry, but don't lean on that post of yours i it will topple over. You need to think about the actual scenario. What you said would happen in most cases in nature (a few will throw a cast), but queens are not clipped in feral colonies. Yes, no?

RAB