Went in my strongest hive today, found a capped q cell. wasn't there last weekend. Box ix packed. Gave em another box last weekend but they aren't pulling comb. Last year, I pulled frames with capped cells and made nucs. Parent hive swarmed anyway. This is my best queen I dont want to lose her or a swarm. What should I do, If I pull her and a couple frames of brood and put her in a nuc, will she stay? The parent hive will have a capped cell will that kill their urge? Thanks for any input. G
I think you hit the nail on the head,if you use her to make a nuc I think she will stay.
Cheers
Steve
agreed.. Pull the queen and some brood/bees. This is called an artificial swarm.. THEY feel like they have swarmed and the desire to do so fades. I typically pull three frames of brood in all stages with adhering bees. A frame of nectar/honey and an empty drawn frame. Depending on the number of bees on those frames I may give the nuc another shake of bees from an open brood frame, so it will have mostly NURSE bees on it..
I will also remove all but two swarm cells from the main hive. This will limit the fighting, AND reduce chances of a cast while insuring one of those two cells should be Viable..
Could ONE of those queens fly off as a cast swarm? Yes
Could both sealed queen cells be duds? Yes
The "ODDS" of either are lower using the method outlined..
There is a greater likelihood that the first queen out will destroy the other queen than she will abscond in a cast. There is a greater likelihood if both emerge they will fight, and only one will survive, rather than one of them taking off in a cast.
some like to leave ONE cell, some only take one or two frames of brood/bees.. etc.. there are a LOT of ways to do it and make it work.. as outlined works well for me.
Thanks alot to both of you. Yeah, Old Mech, last year, I took a couple frames of brood a frame of honey and a frame of pollen twice for two nucs. Queens got bred, everything worked out good on the nucs, still the parent hive swarmed, raised its own queen (who is incidentally the queen in question) so other than the swarm all was good. Just lost time and bees. Im trying to build up, so I figured, I would try and switch it, as to not lose the laying ability while waiting for a mating flight. I think thats what i will do, then use her for a brood factory for splits and boosting. Shes a powerful layer. Good mite resistant genetics too. Thanks yall. G
Once they have made the decision to swarm it is very difficult to stop them, so the idea is to swarm them before they swarm themselves. If you split/did an artificial swarm with the old queen and they still swarmed, then they already had swarm cells started, and or they were still crowded.. could have been nectar and pollen bound etc..
There is no guarantee when you deal with a bee.