Hi everybody, an old time beekeeper suggested shaking out a hive could, as a last resort, be a means of finding the queen. He said to put an excluder above the base board, shake, replace the super and frames above the excluder and the queen will make her way back in. Next day a small cluster of bees will be on the under side of the excluder with the queen. Does that sound feasible?
Sounds risky to me. Why do you need to find her?
Steve
I wouldn't try it!
Scott
nope. not very many good reasons for even looking for her. what's your reason?
To potentially stop losing half my bees in the hive to a swarm. There are queen cells present but the queen is still in the hive laying-I have tried three times to find her so as to do a split
Do the split anyway. Just leave queen cells in both halves and move both about 6 feet from the original site. Intersperse empty frames amongst the full frames in both halves.
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You have summer in Australia.
Last autumn we tried to change the queen but problems was how to find a virgin queen. It obviosly was there.
I shaked the bees in front of the hive and I put an excluder in front of the entrance. When almost all bees were inside, the queen was to be seen. It was small like a worker. Abdomen was a little bit longer and long hind legs.
to find queen -put a frame of brood from another hive-inside and check back in
about 45 minutes --queen will be on that frame- ;) -RDY-B
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If you have a mad hive and you cannot look the frames for attacking, devide the hive. Move brood boxes some metres away. Bees will fly to old place and those boxes, which doe not have a queen, will become nervous.
When the worst gang has gone, you may look for the queen.
Oz, is this the hive that superseded its queen? If so these are not swarm cells, if you have a laying queen just move these cells to a nuc or do nothing as I mentioned earlier.
...JP
it really doesnt matter where the queen is if you are doing a split just make sure that some of the frames that you put into your new hive has swarm cells on it. The queen will kill the swarm cells in the hive she is in and the swarm cells will hatch out on the hive without the queen.
Quote from: backyard warrior on December 27, 2010, 09:04:20 PM
it really doesnt matter where the queen is if you are doing a split just make sure that some of the frames that you put into your new hive has swarm cells on it. The queen will kill the swarm cells in the hive she is in and the swarm cells will hatch out on the hive without the queen.
better be careful on this typically i find that mated queen wont chew up queen cells-virgins do it right off the bat- 8-)
:) RDY-B
Quote from: JP on December 27, 2010, 07:12:39 PM
Oz, is this the hive that superseded its queen? If so these are not swarm cells, if you have a laying queen just move these cells to a nuc or do nothing as I mentioned earlier.
...JP
Hey JP, it's one of the three yeah... I'm questioning my 'diagnosis' of it being supersedure cells :( I think doing nothing might be the safest bet though! Worst case I lose some bees to a swarm - I can always combine other swarms with it as it's still swarm season here. I just didn't want to be a beekeeper who had his hives swarm :(
Quote from: OzBuzz on December 28, 2010, 12:02:31 AM
Quote from: JP on December 27, 2010, 07:12:39 PM
Oz, is this the hive that superseded its queen? If so these are not swarm cells, if you have a laying queen just move these cells to a nuc or do nothing as I mentioned earlier.
...JP
Hey JP, it's one of the three yeah... I'm questioning my 'diagnosis' of it being supersedure cells :( I think doing nothing might be the safest bet though! Worst case I lose some bees to a swarm - I can always combine other swarms with it as it's still swarm season here. I just didn't want to be a beekeeper who had his hives swarm :(
Oz, you wouldn't be the first or the last bee keeper to have their hives swarm my friend. :-D
...JP