So I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to catch a very large swarm last week and it was so awesome! I was able to do it successfully and have left them alone for a week now. I checked on them today and they are doing a great job of filling 2 supers with honey but there doesn't appear to be a laying queen. I assume I need to order one now? Sounds like a dumb question but I am very new with no mentor to guide me really. When she arrives it's ideal to have the brood box on bottom with honey box on top, right?
How large a swarm? Basketball size? This could be a swarm with a virgin queen. A virgin queen could take at least 10-14 days to start laying. At least that long. Do you have another hive that is decently strong? If so, steal a frame with eggs and young larvae and give it to the new bees. Make sure not to tske the queen. If they are queenless, they will draw out queen cells in a couple of days. No queen cells means there is a queen preparing to turn it on. And yes, honey over brood. In your brood boxes you will notice that bees usually devote the outside frames to honey. Inside that is honey and pollen. Then brood. Extra honey goes above.
By the way, what did you put the swarm on? If you put them in a box filled with honey, the queen will have nowhere to lay. Again, giving them a frame with brood will also give her a place to lay once capped brood hatches out.
You don't want to over whelm the bees with too much room.
Place the honey towards the outside sections of the box and place the empty frames in towards the center.
Look to be sure that you don't have a queen.
Don't worry about finding her, they like to hide and picking one particular bee out of thousands can be hard.
Look for brood, most of the time it will be capped brood in a arch from the bottom up.
Outside the capped brood will be uncapped brood and the further out you go the brood will be smaller and outside of that is usually eggs which are hard to see if the light doesn't hit them right.
At the top can be capped honey and in the upper corners.
In the lower corners can be capped drone brood.
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll312/capt44/broodframe1_zps19d915ec.jpg)
Karabee,
When you looked in the hive, did you see an area, in the center that did not have any honey in it and maybe a ring of pollen. If so there is a real good chance that the bees have created a brood area for that new queen to start laying. I agree with adding a frame of brood, no need to take any bees and have a chance of taking your queen with the frame. I would place it in the center of the top super to minimize disturbing that hive as much as possible. Pull one frame out and replace it with the brood frame and close it up. If you disturb that hive too much, the bees will take out their frustrations on the new queen that has not had a chance to prove herself with a lot of brood.
Jim
Thanks for the advice on some things to look for. I will go out again tomorrow and look for some of those things. That photo will really help! The swarm was at least as big as a basketball if not larger. I put them in a hive that had a little bit of drawn comb (leftover from an absconded hive) so there was no honey at all inside. I do have another good hive I could borrow some brood from.
Quote from: KaraBee on August 22, 2014, 10:09:47 PM
Thanks for the advice on some things to look for. I will go out again tomorrow and look for some of those things. That photo will really help! The swarm was at least as big as a basketball if not larger. I put them in a hive that had a little bit of drawn comb (leftover from an absconded hive) so there was no honey at all inside. I do have another good hive I could borrow some brood from.
NP, again minimize what you do in this hive until you have a good amount of brood.
Jim
Karabee, the best thing now is to leave it alone for another week, then look for eggs. You will know much more then.
take pictures of any open cells you can. take the pics down into the bottom of the cells. lots of people miss eggs when they are out at the hive but they are easy to see when you look at the pics.
seems unlikely that you'd get a swarm that big without a queen, probably a mated queen. it is possible, though. the queen can be eaten or damaged.
i am going to disagree with iddee just a bit here only because it's the end of august and the weather will change soon. he lives in one of those warm southern places :-).
i would give them 1 week from the time you caught them left alone. check. one more week, then act. the first thing i'd do if you don't think you have a laying queen in there after week two, is put a frame of eggs-young larvae from your other hive. check that frame in 24 to 48 hours for queen cells.
sounds like you are headed into week two?
this late, i'd buy a queen if you find you need one. if you are needing a queen then let us know so we can help you place her quickly and successfully.
Karabee said...""I was able to do it successfully and have left them alone for a week now""
I said... ""Give them another week""
Kathyp says ""I disagree, i would give them 1 week from the time you caught them left alone. check. one more week, then act.
Where is the disagreement?? :? :?