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BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: windfall on June 20, 2011, 12:20:52 AM

Title: found Q-cells, when/if to pull old queen for nuc?
Post by: windfall on June 20, 2011, 12:20:52 AM
Six days ago I inspected one of the hives. It was started from an overwintered 8 frame nuc. The bees are thought to be 80% russian or so and I was warned by the supplier (Kirk Webster) that a by-product of his selection for mite resistance are bees with "a strong urge to swarm". The hive has kept small queen cups from the beginning. But today when I went through it again I found 3-4 capped queen cells, 2-3 long uncapped cells with larva, and quite a few new cups...mostly right around the actual cells. Some of these cells are on the bottoms edges of developing new foundationless comb, some are coming out face the face of old comb. They (full Q-cells) are spread over 4 frames all in the top box of 2, 8 frame boxes. Here is a good example:
(http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/463/img3496by.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/838/img3496by.jpg/)


I am quite certain I would have noticed anything more than the small cups I had seen before. Given that timeline, I am assuming that these cells have been capped within the last day or two.....correct? It is possible that there were larva in the small cups six days ago. I checked some  then and they were empty, but did not look at all so maybe capped as much as 3 days ago? I never saw anything bigger than the little side cup in the picture before today...how fast do they extend them?

I don't know if they are swarm or supercedre cells. but either way my understanding is that my best bet is to remove the old queen along with a few frames. This is great since I was hoping to make a nuc this year anyway and now is supposed to be a very good time for that here in VT..was even considering buying some cells,BUT...

We had a very slow spring here, and the hive has grown to 12-13 full deeps and 2-3 partial frames. There is very little capped honey (just corners of some brood frames)and maybe two frames ripening....LOTs of pollen and the rest brood. Can I safely remove 3-4 frames from this hive without setting it back too much?

If I can when is this best done? Tomorrow? or should I let the cells mature a bit more and the old queen keep laying for a few more days before I attempt it?

Title: Re: found Q-cells, when/if to pull old queen for nuc?
Post by: iddee on June 20, 2011, 12:30:27 AM
She will swarm within the next 4 days. Do it now.
Title: Re: found Q-cells, when/if to pull old queen for nuc?
Post by: caticind on June 20, 2011, 01:06:22 PM
If you're going to split, do it now.  If they have little stores now, they will have less after they swarm!
Title: Re: found Q-cells, when/if to pull old queen for nuc?
Post by: windfall on June 20, 2011, 03:25:47 PM
so, it took me two hours but i found the queen and split off a nuc: 1 frame mostly capped, one frame some capped some open some eggs frame of honey half capped half ripening and  a partially drawn frame. then i did my first "shake"....are all the bees onthe comb supposed to drop off or just a handful? after 4-5 tries i got maybe2/3....and things got a bit well agitated!
Like I said it took a long time but I did get to see a bunch of things I had only read about..very cool...as well as find another handful of capped and open cells.

I then had to close things up and get back to the kids. but i feel like i read that i should have removed all but 2-3 of the queen cells? (I did make sure none went in the nuc) Should I go back in to the main hive and eliminate some?
I believe we have good flows strting here blackberry and raspberry as well as white clover. The box I used for the nuc has division board/frame feeder...But I assume I really shouldn't feed them....right? also the entrance is probably 3/8 X3" should I choke that down to 1" to help them defend that honey frame?....I have another hive on the property that seemed pretty empty of stores during yesterday's check.
Title: Re: found Q-cells, when/if to pull old queen for nuc?
Post by: caticind on June 20, 2011, 03:54:47 PM
Nice work finding the queen.  Sounds like you found her just in time.

Wouldn't hurt to reduce the entrance on the nuc for a while if you're worried about robbing.  If there is nectar coming in, though, you don't need to feed.  If they have a whole frame mostly capped, they should be fine for a couple of weeks until your flow does start solid.

You can remove the queen cells but don't have to.  The idea is to reduce after-swarms, but if they feel crowded they will swarm even with just 2-3 cells.  And if you leave them only one they may end up queenless.  The way I usually approach this is to ask, is the hive still crowded after the split?  If so, why not take another split out with a few more queen cells.  If it's not crowded, they're less likely to have after-swarms no matter how many queen cells are left.  I can't really think of any occasion when I don't have a better use for a queen cell than killing it.

When people say "shake", they often mean "brush".  Either way you are going to get a lot of agitated bees, though.
Title: Re: found Q-cells, when/if to pull old queen for nuc?
Post by: windfall on June 20, 2011, 04:35:05 PM
I tried brushing them off first with an old turkey wing feather but they did not want to let go of the frame...I doubt I really was, but I felt like I was damaging alot of bees and switched to "shaking"

I hate to destroy the cells, but If I pull off another 4 frame nuc I will have reduced the hive into essentialy 3, 4-5 frame nucs...not a bad thing except I only statred with 2 hives. It would be nice to go into winter with two "full" hives and a nuc....preferable to 3 nucs and a full hive...maybe not I will think on that. certainly preferable to one nuc and one hive and the rest lost to swarming. Also the subsequent nucs would not get nearly as much honey as this first one..but I guess I could feed instead.
My ability to judge whats "Crowded" is mostly guess work, and I don't have any drawn comb on hand to let them spread out on...so the only space I can give them are empty foundationless frames which I understand wont have the desired effect.