Swarm Chaos! Advice please.

[Coldwater]

Ok. Lots of action this morning, and I'd I'm just collecting my thoughts before I go in and try and sort things out. Any advice greatly appreciated.

I have a single national hive on brood and a half (I know, I know.... It was doing so well at the start of the year I just left it with the super on.). It came through very strongly and had 8 frames of BIAS by early march.

Been on holiday for 2 weeks got back at 3am this morning. Woken at 9 am by a swarm outside e window. It has gone in under the slates int the roof space where they go every year and I can't seem to stop them ( might try and trap out this year). Went down to the bottom of the field to see if it was my hive that had swarmed ( about 180m away). First thing I saw was bees beardning on the front of the hive (see photo). Second thing I saw was two clusters of bees on a young tree and tree guard about 10m from the hive.

Opened the hive to see if the roof swarm has come from me. It doesn't look like it... Thousands of bees inside, stuffed. Probably 7-8 deep frames of bees and lots on the shallow frames too. Couldn't fin d the queen anywhere, but that's not unusual for me.
Lots of sealed queen cells between the super and brood box and some on the side of frames in the super...

What do you think? Are e clusters on the small tree from my hive? Why are they two small separate clusters. If it was one large cluster I would get the, straight into a cardboard box but is it likely to be two small swarms each with their own queen who will fight if I put them in the same box? Or is it more lilkely that the queen didn't make it out and flying and so they are just a little confused?

Ging to go back in a bit and see if I can find HM again... If so will do AS. If not.....? What would you advise?

 

[Coldwater]

Bearding on hive

 

[Coldwater]

Two small clusters in the tree next door

 

[busybee53]

If your hive has sealed queen cells the prime swarm is very likely to be yours as they swarm when the queen cell is sealed. As you have a lot of sealed queen cells it is also possible that other virgins also emerged and left with smaller cast swarms. If you have the equipment I would treat the two smaller ones as casts and keep them separate. You can always unite later. No doubt you will get more advice from more experienced beeks soon. Meanwhile you need to sort out the hive with sealed queen cells or there will be more casts. Bet your holiday seems a distant memory already. That's bees for you. Good luck.

 

[thebhoy]

Possibly cast swarms....
I think the first thing to do is to catch each of them....in separate boxes....before they take off for a new home and you lose the opportunity.
If you don't have enough equipment, cardboard boxes or even large flowerpots could be used as a temporary measure.

Once you have them it will give you a chance to check them, find if queen with them, make decisions etc.

 

[fiftyjon]

If you have sealed queen cells and swarms hanging from the trees, your queen is likely to be in one of them.

Collect the swarms and hive them.

Go through your hive and checked for an open queen cell with a larva swimming on royal jelly, mark the frame. Look at the other queen cells and see if any have had queens emerged, if so you probably have swarms with virgin queens. If you find the queen in the hive then perform an artificial swarm, if she isn't there reduce the cells down to just the one you have selected, go through the hive in a week destroying the other cells and then leave for three weeks.

Once they have all settled in a few weeks you could unite them for a honey crop.

 

[sandysman]

If you have sealed queen cells and swarms hanging from the trees, your queen is likely to be in one of them.

Collect the swarms and hive them.

Go through your hive and checked for an open queen cell with a larva swimming on royal jelly, mark the frame. Look at the other queen cells and see if any have had queens emerged, if so you probably have swarms with virgin queens. If you find the queen in the hive then perform an artificial swarm, if she isn't there reduce the cells down to just the one you have selected, go through the hive in a week destroying the other cells and then leave for three weeks.

Once they have all settled in a few weeks you could unite them for a honey crop.

:iagree

+ don't panic

 

[beeno]

Hi Coldwater and pros,
Am I correct that in 'that German video' shows all the cast swarms together and you find one virgin and scope the right amount of bees with it for a nuc? Sure, cuts down on the gear?

 

[Hombre]

With patience that will work. Lock them in for a couple of days so that they can use honey stores to pull out comb and make them less likely to abscond. Feed if necessary once they are let out to play.

 

[MuswellMetro]

if i find a split swarm like that, i throw them both into one box, often it is just bees being bees rather than a cast and prime, normaly a cast issues when the virgin queen emerge not with the prime

 

[Coldwater]

Just thought I'd post a quick update on what happened subsequently...
I went and boxed the two separate swarms as best I could and then left them for a half hour to settle. When I cam e back, both boxes were empty and the bees were formed up as a single swarm back in the tree. I did a better job the second time and shook them into a nuc and left them for an hour for the stragglers to join them in the nuc. They were all safely inside, so I gave them five frames of foundation and I'll see how they're doing tomorrow.

I went into the main hive. Still buckets full of bees n there, three empty queen cells, some sealed but dead looking queen cells and a dozen still sealed queen cells. I did a thorough check for the original queen but did not see her. I decided to thin out the sealed viable cells a little but wanted to have a good look at what was inside the first one I chose. I opened the cell very gently and got the shock of my life when a fully formed queen scurried out of the cell at me... The nearby workers I,mediated jumped on her and started trying to stingier. She got away but I marked her for interest and noticed her scurrying around being beaten up by any workers she came near.
There were still so many bees I reckoned that the hive was going to be casting swarms till kingdom come, so I decided to do a seat-of-my-pants modified AS. I put the new marked unwelcome queen with 2 frames of brood and two other queen cells in new brood box situated where the old one was- foraging bees started coming back n to join her. I put the original hive with 2 queen cells and any other queen that might have already been out a fe yards away facing in another direction.

I'm hoping that all the flying bees for the original hie will be in the new hive by now and the original hive will be just house bees with queen cells and maybe a queen in it....?

I think this is what they call a learning experience.... Hopefully in a couple of days I should have three colonies from one huge one and I can either reunite or build up the three colonies. Probably equally likely that I'll only have 1 or 0 colonies, but there we go.

An interesting note. Although there is BIAS there are a LOT of drones (maybe 15-20% of total bee population?).... That combined with the presence of about half the queen cells on the side of the comb face makes me wonder whether the might be some supersedure going on?

Anŷway, I'm sure I have made lots of mistakes, so let me know what you think. Especially about the queens released from her cell and was immediately set upon by everyone... Presumably she doesn't have much of a pheromone at that age?

 

[Erichalfbee]

******

I went into the main hive. Still buckets full of bees n there, three empty queen cells, some sealed but dead looking queen cells and a dozen still sealed queen cells. I did a thorough check for the original queen but did not see her.

That's because she is in your nuc box


I decided to thin out the sealed viable cells a little but wanted to have a good look at what was inside the first one I chose. I opened the cell very gently and got the shock of my life when a fully formed queen scurried out of the cell at me... The nearby workers I,mediated jumped on her and started trying to stingier. She got away but I marked her for interest and noticed her scurrying around being beaten up by any workers she came near.
There were still so many bees I reckoned that the hive was going to be casting swarms till kingdom come, so I decided to do a seat-of-my-pants modified AS. I put the new marked unwelcome queen with 2 frames of brood and two other queen cells in new brood box situated where the old one was- foraging bees started coming back n to join her. I put the original hive with 2 queen cells and any other queen that might have already been out a fe yards away facing in another direction.

I'm hoping that all the flying bees for the original hie will be in the new hive by now and the original hive will be just house bees with queen cells and maybe a queen in it....?

This document is mentioned all the time.
http://www.wbka.com/images/education/a012queencells.pdf
Have a look at it and file it somewhere.
Letting lots of virgins lose in your hive at once is not a bad thing

I think this is what they call a learning experience.... Hopefully in a couple of days I should have three colonies from one huge one and I can either reunite or build up the three colonies. Probably equally likely that I'll only have 1 or 0 colonies, but there we go.

An interesting note. Although there is BIAS there are a LOT of drones (maybe 15-20% of total bee population?).... That combined with the presence of about half the queen cells on the side of the comb face makes me wonder whether the might be some supersedure going on?

I think that is a normal summer drone population.......but I might be wrong and somebody will come along and correct me.

Anŷway, I'm sure I have made lots of mistakes, so let me know what you think. Especially about the queens released from her cell and was immediately set upon by everyone... Presumably she doesn't have much of a pheromone at that age?

 

[user 6228]

From the research and our practice , the rules are simple:
Keep them dark keep them warm,
Container volume 30 to 60 litres,
Entrance less than 30 sq cm.

The construction doesnt matter for a few days.

A cardbox made water proof with black bin binbag and gaffer tape. It will last for quite a few days,. If you cant scavenge the boxes your local STAPLES office supplies has flat pack boxes. Why not keep a few boxes (flat) the right size with bin bags and a roll of gaffer tape ready for those panics?

oh remember to take the bread knife to make an entrance.

 

[user 6228]

e go.

An interesting note. Although there is BIAS there are a LOT of drones (maybe 15-20% of total bee population?)....

Thats normal...

 

[beeno]

Hi Coldwater,
Busy times hey (my turn next no doubt). I would have thought that your queen has swarmed a week ago, and the 3 empty queen cells tallies with the three casts you have seen. I would proceed on the basis that you are dealing with casts, but I am not sure whether this will influence your decision making at this stage.