On 5/27/2009 I caught a fair sized swarm in an apple orchard about 30 miles from here. They took to their new digs and have been building very well ever since. I fed them maybe 4 oz of honey the first day, and nothing after that. They filled out almost 1 and half deeps in less than a month, thanks to a good flow this year. They were starting to beard during the hot weather, so I put a queen excluder above the two deeps and added a honey super, just to give them some room to not feel crowded and hopefully not feel the need to swarm.
On July 2 I happened to walk by the hive and darn if they weren't trying to swarm. I sat and watched it and after a half hour or so, then they went back into the hive. It was not an orientation flight, but a swarm attempt for sure, loud buzz, huge numbers flying above the hive in circles, and bees crawling all over the hive . Apparently the queen didn't want to leave.
I decided to get back into the hive and found a frame with a cluster of swarm/supersedure cells on it an the queen walking all over the frame. The cappings were light brown so I figured they were new cells. At that time I made a quick decision to move 5 frames of brood and stores and the queen to another deep about 10 feet away (an empty just in case of a swarm when I wasn't home) and let the big hive make a new queen from the queen cells. I reduced the entrance to the smallest opening. My thinking was, I was moving mostly nurse bees and the queen to another hive so she wouldn't have the masses to swarm with, plus have brood to take care of, and not have a competing queen in the hive. The main hive would be without a laying queen for 3 to 5 weeks and by that time it would be August and maybe their swarming wants would be diminished.
While painting some new wooden ware today I took a break and looked at the hives and darn it if the old hive wasn't trying to coax the old queen into swarming. They were flying all over above the new hive and crawling all over it. Again about a half hour elapsed and they gave up on her swarming with them.
I had checked the hive yesterday and saw the queen, but no new eggs. There is very little activity in and out of the hive.
The basswood flow is days away from starting and I am wondering if the want to swarm during another big flow. Will the old hive continue to try to get the old queen to swarm or will they give up. Should I move the new hive and if so how far away? I only have 2.5 acres and don't know of a place else where in the area I could move it to.
Thanks!
QuoteI had checked the hive yesterday and saw the queen, but no new eggs. There is very little activity in and out of the hive
is this the new hive or the one that you let requeen?
are you very sure that you were not observing orientation flights? i watched bees boil out of a couple of mine 2 days in a row for orientation flights. it's pretty impressive.
Quote from: kathyp on July 05, 2009, 09:20:56 PM
is this the new hive or the one that you let requeen?
This is the new hive with the queen from the old hive.
I have never hear orientation flights roar like this did, nor see so many of them flying high in the air. But I have been into beekeeping for only 3 years so maybe I have not seen a large orientation flight. Today's flight was only over the new hive and not the old one. Almost all of the activity was at the new hive and not the old, including lotsa bees crawling all over the hive. It made me think they wanted the old queen to swarm with them again.
Thanks!
Well I had a swarm today as well, I was surprised, lost it too, way high in the trees. 2 more weeks swarming season is suppose to be over.
it could be. the queen not laying can be a sign of impending swarm, but so can no flow in your area.
do you have a queen, laying or not, in the old hive yet? might you have observed a mating flight? when you pulled the frames for the new hives, did you notice a high number of drones on them? how about in the old hive?
Quote from: MustbeeNuts on July 05, 2009, 09:46:38 PM
Well I had a swarm today as well, I was surprised, lost it too, way high in the trees. 2 more weeks swarming season is suppose to be over.
I should keep an eye on my swarm trap.!? :-D
Sorry to hear you lost some, Al.
Quote from: kathyp on July 05, 2009, 09:49:24 PM
it could be. the queen not laying can be a sign of impending swarm, but so can no flow in your area.
do you have a queen, laying or not, in the old hive yet? might you have observed a mating flight? when you pulled the frames for the new hives, did you notice a high number of drones on them? how about in the old hive?
The new hive was only two days old, so the queen not laying after the disruption may be normal, or maybe she was getting ready to swarm in the old hive. The old hive, which has only queen cells, had not hatched as of yesterday, and it may be a few days, given the color of the caps.
I didn't notice any elevated level of drones, in either hive.
I may have to inspect again tomorrow.
Thanks.
Easy come, easy go.
Well it took the swarm hive another 12 days to raise a queen, get her breed and talk her into leaving. Which they did in large numbers.
Darn.
I watched them swarm yesterday afternoon, just after an hour long rain btw, and sit in the top of a 35 foot soft maple just 10 feet into my neighbors yard. I tore the hive apart, put all the frames with bees, brood and honey back in the original hive and just a single deep (they had plenty of room) and found a few frames that were drawn out with a little honey and put the other deep near the base of the tree. I sprinkled in some lemon-grass oil on the landing an a few frames. The scout were looking at the hive all evening and into the morning. Then around 1:00 pm today they took off for parts north. The scouts showed no interest in another trap I had out.
Double darn.
I guess this swarm hive had gypsy genes in it, cause that is how I got the hive. I am left with a deep and a nuc, filled with bees, so it is not a total loss. The original queen is in a nuc just laying like crazy and quite happy to give up her nomadic pollinating life. With it as late in the year, I didn't want to wait for another queen to hatch, though a virgin may be in the hive, so I got a queen from a pro beek and requeened them this afternoon. Hopefully she will be laying soon and I can salvage the rest of the hive.
In hind-sight I wish I had tried a little redneck beekeeping and tried to shoot the limb off, though I really think they were bent on leaving. :-D
Oh well. :)
Man don't it bug ya ta seeing them little rascals just up and leave on ya, sorry bout that, well like you said a deep and a nuc out of them ain't all bad. new queen should get you right up and going, my three have all got queens on the go and I saw eggs now in them, just today made another check, so I'm like you up two nucs, and couple meds. hive. I think I should feed them in a month or so, in aug. sometime. till then there on there own.
Yes it is a bummer to watch them leave. All you can do is wave bye-bye and ask them to write if they find work. :'(
What is funny is they were heading to an apiary of 40 hives about 3 miles away. I think a pro-beek from Missouri left them here for the start thistle after the fruit pollination. I just noticed them yesterday. Guess they love the life of a gypsy. :-D
Hopefully the store bought queen will win out and she will like being a home body.
Quote from: skflyfish on July 05, 2009, 09:35:46 PM
Quote from: kathyp on July 05, 2009, 09:20:56 PM
is this the new hive or the one that you let requeen?
This is the new hive with the queen from the old hive.
I have never hear orientation flights roar like this did, nor see so many of them flying high in the air. But I have been into beekeeping for only 3 years so maybe I have not seen a large orientation flight. Today's flight was only over the new hive and not the old one. Almost all of the activity was at the new hive and not the old, including lotsa bees crawling all over the hive. It made me think they wanted the old queen to swarm with them again.
Thanks!
The bees will often force the queen to swarm before the queen cells hatch, in fact I've know of hives to force the old queen to swarm as soon as the queen cells were capped. If any brood frames with queen cells went with the old queen when you split out the swarm cells, the hive could still swarm. Splits do not always solve a swarm problem but it does make it less likely. I split a hive a few weeks ago and had it swarm 10 days later, I must have missed a queen cell or 2.
Quote from: Brian D. Bray on July 21, 2009, 02:11:14 AM
The bees will often force the queen to swarm before the queen cells hatch, in fact I've know of hives to force the old queen to swarm as soon as the queen cells were capped. If any brood frames with queen cells went with the old queen when you split out the swarm cells, the hive could still swarm. Splits do not always solve a swarm problem but it does make it less likely. I split a hive a few weeks ago and had it swarm 10 days later, I must have missed a queen cell or 2.
I think that was just the case originally. They capped some new queen cells and decided to leave. Fortunately for me, the queen didn't want to swarm and I was there to witness it. So I put her and some brood in a nuc and left the queen cells in the old hive, thinking they would hatch some new queens and it would be late enough in the season that they would stay and build up again. Then they tried to get her to swarm, from the nuc, a few days later, but she wouldn't go again.
I had forgot my brush in all of this and had to shake the queen and bees off of the queen capped frame into the nuc. I think I damaged the queens in the cells with the shaking, so they quickly built two more cells on an adjacent frame. I was into the original hive late last week and saw that one queen cell had hatched and was excited for her getting bred and the hive expanding again. They had almost filled a super full of honey while waiting for the queen(s). Opps, they didn't do what I thought they would and swarmed.
The way the scouts were looking at the trap hive, maybe a dozen or more, and they kept flying back to the swarm and then back to the hive trap I thought I might have saved the day. But it was not to be. Guess I should have got the .22 out. :evil:
I got into the nuc and saw the bronze queen that I put in from the original hive. I didn't see any queen cells in the nuc, but the queen was noticeably smaller in size. I am wondering if they reduce their size when running out of space to lay (she is waiting for more brood to hatch to gather more nectar for wax) or if she has literally worked her little butt off and it at the end of her cycle? She did build up two deep of bees, from scratch, in about 5 weeks.
This sure has been a learning experience for me, and I don't think it is over. :-D
Thanks Brian.
A shrinking queen is sometimes a preswarm thing, or so I've been told, she is too big to fly so they starve her down for the flight. might be wrong just what I heard.
I hope that is not the case in this particular situation.
Thanks for the reply.