Another newbee problem (swarms!)

[joslionel]

Good evening,

Apologies for the wall of text

I've been keeping bees since summer of 2006 but apparently haven't learned a thing apart from how to light a smoker reliably.

I went out today to put my compost on the heap only to be confronted by a mass of friendly bees in my hedge. So I got out my water sprayer, cooled them down, and transfered them into a 5 frame poly nuc box (with only one deep frame in it). So now I don't have bees in my hedge.

My question is, can I give them 4 shallow frames alongside the deep frame for now while I wait on some more equipment. Unfortunately all of my spares have been taken up in the past week or two, here's the story:

I did an artificial swarm on colony 1 about three weeks ago, and all seems ok. The "swarm" is queenright but I haven't been in the "original" yet, although they are bringing in pollen.

Last week I wanted to do the same for colony two, but I couldn't find the queen anywhere. It was on brood-and-a-half. Didn't see eggs or the queen, so I asked and was told to split the brood and stores between two, with a queen cell in each. I may have completely misunderstood but this is what I did... Anyway, now one colony is overflowing with bees and the other is very weak looking. All of the flying bees are in the strong colony, I imagine, since it's on the original site.

So I surmise that the weaker colony is the originator of this swarm. Could they have swarmed on a virgin queen five days after the split even though they should have been quite low on flying bees?

Paranoid moment; what if the "swarm" section which is overflowing with bees has more than one queen cell left over? What do???

Oh lawks.

 

[enrico]

Give them any frames you have otherwise they will build wild comb in the space and that will be chaotic, unless you have a dummy board or ar able to fill the void with something else. If you use shallow frames they will just build a bit of drone comb underneath and that can be removed when you swap the frames. I will read the rest and come back to you on that in a minute!
E

 

[enrico]

I can only presume your weak split is the one that actually had the queen hence the reason they swarmed and you are now short of bees. If they are that weak then think about combining them with another hive making sure that you have no queen cells in there before you combine, or put them in a nuc and put the swarm in their hive! That would help all round methinks.
Trust me, some of us are still learning after numerous years so just keep smiling, at least you have the swarm and the rest of your bees!
E

 

[MartinL]

first of all;
no problem with the short frames, they'll draw out below easily enough, (will be a bit weaker but ok if you're careful on hot days when inspecting.

The "original" colony is my favoured one for the swarm, (if you're sure it was from your apiary)?

Your second split may have left you with;
1, a colony with a strong queen, (who killed any usurpers before they emerged).
2 A weak cold and queen-less colony that is now struggling?

You really need to take a peek inside both of your first splits.

What sized boxes did you "split" them all into?

 

[joslionel]

Well thanks Enrico. On R4 on Saturday the host asked if a swarm signified a failed beekeeper, I presume that's the consensus opinion! Especially among neighbours who may not much like bees....

It's pouring with rain now, and has been most of the day. They must have swarmed during the hour or so of sun this afternoon. Clever girls.

Regarding the very strong colony then, the other half of the split: assuming that the queen cells I gave them are viable, should I leave them be to get on with hatching and mating ol' queenie? Inspect them?

MartinL - the "original" hive (just to clarify, the queenless section of the first colony I ASed) seems to be doing quite well from outside, as much activity as the other half of that AS by now. I will have a look inside ASAP.

Would you second the idea of putting weak second split in the nuc and swarm-with-queen in the full hive?

Crikey, I feel like every year I'm totally overwhelmed!

Thanks for your help

The splits, unfortunately, are in jumbo nationals while the original parts are standard nationals. Not ideal, I know :S

 

[enrico]

Chin up! If swarms mean you are a failed beekeeper then I have failed for thirty years! That's what bees do to reproduce and we all know how strong that urge can be! Bit like teenagers, you can try and stop them all you like but the little b!!!s will still get each other pregnant!
I am a bit worried when you use the plural of queen cells in your strong split! A single queen cell would have been safer! What you don't want to do is for the first of several queen cells to emerge and the virgin to get the swarming bug!
This forum is a good place to get loads of hints and clues that will help you realise you are not alone, you just need to pick out which solution suits your method of beekeeping best.
My next tip is, in the autumn, to reduce the amount of hives you end up with, to the amount you want to start next summer with. Otherwise you will end up with so many you will be tearing your hair out!
Best of luck and keep asking the questions
E!

 

[joslionel]

Queen cell, optimally, but sod's law says that I will have missed some (or killed the one I left!).

They should have plenty of space in the stronger split, but they're all clustered out front and spilling out of the crown board. I am reluctant to open them up though because I heard you shouldn't do that if you're waiting on a virgin queen; should I look anyway?

I'm working 12hr days today until Friday which is inconvenient. I feel like I ought to verify that the first splits are queenright, then maybe find the queen in the swarm. If she's marked then I suppose there's a good chance she's the queen I couldn't find last week.

Then I need to make sure the strong split only has one QC but as I mentioned, is disturbing the colony OK? And, I suppose, make sure of the same in the weaker split....

On the positive side, I have another colony that has no queen cells or queen cups and is on a double brood and gave me 100lbs of honey last season, and they don't even look at me funny when I clumsily tear apart their home. If only they were all like that!

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[enrico]

Don't open any if you think you have virgin queens in them, if you feel you need to look for queen cells in the others then do it but if you are lucky the first virgin out MAY kill off any others! Your old queen should be fine leave her, they should be busy drawing comb and you will just disturb them!
E

 

[alldigging]

Chin up! If swarms mean you are a failed beekeeper then I have failed for thirty years!
E!

That's probably one of the most reassuring things I've read in the last week

 

[joslionel]

Good evening,

A quick update! Or not so quick as the case may be.

Curiosity got the better of me, so I crunched the numbers and figured with uncapped queen cells last Thursday when I did the split, I wouldn't expect any virgin queens that I could scare off.

So I opened up, and had a look. The stronger section of the split had three QCs, sealed, and one was opening before my eyes. I set that apart, destroyed the rest, including any queen cups and anything suspicious looking. Then I put the queen cell back in the hive and... CRUNCH!

ARGH I can't believe this sort of stuff happens in real life. So, yes, I crushed her to death because of my clumsiness. Boo hoo. And had already got rid of the rest of the queen cells.

Not to worry, I thought, I'll look in the weaker section of the split and maybe I'll have left spares there...

So, once inside, I find absolutely no queen cells whatsoever, nor any eggs apart from a tiny patch (which I thought may in fact have been the sun glinting off the bottom of the cells). But.. I did find a queen!

Weirdly, she was unmarked and suspiciously new and shiny looking. I don't think it's my old queen at all.

So... I don't really know what's going on. Oh well, at least one of them is queenright!

A quick question, as I mentioned before, I have a really nice colony elsewhere. It's about a half an hour drive away, maybe more. Is there any way I can bring a frame of eggs and brood back to the queenless hive so they raise a queen from that stock? If it requires more than putting a frame in a nuc box and hoping it doesn't get too cool, I'll give it a miss.

Thanks everyone!

 

[enrico]

Shouldn't be a problem at all to bring a frame of eggs back. Pity about the queen cell getting squashed but most of us have done it at some time! If the queen was emerging I would have been tempted to just help her out and let her run into the hive before checking and destroying the other queen cells. You often find that queens are ready together. I have gone to remove two queen cells in the last and found a developed queen in each, one of which I slipped into a queen less hive and she survived to be a good queen! Doesn't always work but the most important thing to remember is that bees want to live. So they are usually quite forgiving! How did you crush the queen cell? There are lessons to be learnt there!
As far as swarms go, I have been busy demareeing one hive to prevent swarming but today....well you can guess what happened! Managed to get them back but sometimes whatever you do the bees will want to do something different and they usually win!!

E

 

[joslionel]

The frame.slipped out of my hand for the last few inches and must have snagged. I was trying to be delicate! Gloves a tad too big I think.

OK, I'll try bringing a frame back on the weekend, by then I hope it'll be clear one way or the other if they're for sure queenless.

At least the other half seems to be doing fine queen-wise, and with no queen cells I doubt the others will be going anywhere.... I'm going to Hay for the weekend, so I hope not!

Thanks for your help

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