Another Queen Cell Topic

antaro · June 06, 2011, 12:56:00 AM

New (and first) hive. Put the bees in mid-April. Have been feeding 1:1 syrup and pollen patties.
Today I went in for my inspection and noticed 4 - 6 queen cells in the swarm (bottom of frames) positions. My hive appears to be doing well, lots of orientation flights, frames in both deeps at about 90 - 95%. Capped brood in the upper deep. Lots of eggs in the upper.

So I assumed this was for a swarm due to lack of space for the bees. As a result of this conclusion I decided to remove the queen cells as I don't want my new hive to swarm and split. I added my first honey super with 10 empty frames and am hoping this will be the answer to the problem.

Sound reasonable?

Kathyp · June 06, 2011, 01:04:19 AM

wish you'd written before you removed the swarm cells. keep a close eye on them. they may swam anyway and you will now have a queenless hive. they may have already swarmed and you now have a queenless hive. usually a good idea to either do the split to keep them from swarming (hopefully) or leave the cells and see what happens. almost never a good idea to remove the cells.

schawee · June 06, 2011, 01:21:23 AM

i agree with kathy, you could have taken the old queen with some brood frames and some honey frames and place them in a nuc,then they would think they swarmed .now if they allready swarmed your hive will be queenless.just remember,if they are queenless they have the resources to make another queen. ...schawee

antaro · June 06, 2011, 02:20:29 AM

Hmm. Good to know!
Well that is unfortunate, but seeing as how I don't have an extra box lying around, I guess we'll just see what happens.
There seems to be a large amount of bees in the hive, so I don't think they have already swarmed, but I guess they could still have plans.

At what point can I rest assured that they aren't going to swarm? If I check next week and I still have eggs is that a decent indicator that they are going to stick around? Or is this a habitual pattern and they are going to continue in their attempts to leave?

I would split the hive but as a new keeper I don't have extra boxes/supplies lying around, nor do I have the fiscal resources to have an additional setup at the moment.

EDIT - I did some reading that stated that if I removed ALL of the queen cells, then the hive won't swarm, regardless. Would it be a good idea given my current situation to open the boxes again tomorrow and make a thorough check? If the other option is a swarm with no queen cells, that may make sense to me. Thoughts?

indypartridge · June 06, 2011, 07:58:30 AM

Quote from: antaro on June 06, 2011, 02:20:29 AM
If I check next week and I still have eggs is that a decent indicator that they are going to stick around?

Yes, it's an indication (but not a guarantee). Usually the queen stops laying several days before leaving with a swarm.

QuoteEDIT - I did some reading that stated that if I removed ALL of the queen cells, then the hive won't swarm

I'm curious where you read that? Most of my reading indicates that once a hive decides to swarm, it's darn near impossible to change their minds. Thus, the usual practice is to make a split, taking the original queen, in an effort to convince them the swarm happened.

Kathyp · June 06, 2011, 11:09:22 AM

QuoteAt what point can I rest assured that they aren't going to swarm?

you can't.

QuoteEDIT - I did some reading that stated that if I removed ALL of the queen cells, then the hive won't swarm, regardless. Would it be a good idea given my current situation to open the boxes again tomorrow and make a thorough check? If the other option is a swarm with no queen cells, that may make sense to me. Thoughts?

swarm cells do not motivate the hive to swarm. they are something the hive does after it has decided to swarm. removing swarm cell has no impact on the motivation. not all hives swarm just because they start swarm cells....

in the spring, hives are motivated to swarm as a way to reproduce. they multiply the number of hives by swarming. space can also be an issue, but more so in the later part of the year....however, if you know you don't have enough space, you need to fix it. either split, or add room. one deep + frames will cost you about 25 dollars. if you decide to honey super, you can get shallows and frames for less. that's Ruhl bee prices.

with one extra deep, you can make a split.

antaro · June 06, 2011, 11:19:46 AM

Really appreciate all the help, folks. Just trying to get my footing in this world of bees.

While I am sure it is not the definitive source, the swarm cell removal theory is in "Beekeeping for Dummies".
...and if I did a split with a deep and frames, wouldn't I quickly run into the same problem regarding space? I assume that I would need another two deeps, twenty frames, bottom board, and cover to have an effective hive. Am I missing something?

Kathyp · June 06, 2011, 11:47:31 AM

yes, you might :-D at least you could plan for it. also, we do not have all our hives survive over winter. better to have a few extra and some survivors than to hit next spring and have nothing.

you can be as big or small as you wish, but one hive is probably not going to keep you in the world of beekeeping. since you seem to have a great queen, why not take advantage of that and for a very small amount of money (compared to a package and equipment) you have two hives.

if/when you split, take the OLD queen out with some food and brood and leave the old hive with eggs, young larvae, and food. they can make a new queen and the hive will think it swarmed because you took the old.

just make sure that you have eggs and stuff and that the hive has not already swarmed.

BTW...the advice you got to remove swarm cells used to be common. i still see people advise it from time to time. it's not very good advice unless you want to keep buying queens...which gets expensive!

skatesailor · June 06, 2011, 12:17:41 PM

One recuuring theme I see from new beekeepers is that they don't have extra supplies lying around. My advice for anyone starting out is spend a few bucks and have at least one extra hive, better two, in reserve. Swarms happen. If not your own, once your neighbors know you keep bees you will get calls. If you have a good year your hive will expand and you will need to keep ahead of it and not be in an emergency situation.

Larry Bees · June 06, 2011, 12:40:18 PM

Quote from: skatesailor on June 06, 2011, 12:17:41 PM
One recuuring theme I see from new beekeepers is that they don't have extra supplies lying around. My advice for anyone starting out is spend a few bucks and have at least one extra hive, better two, in reserve. Swarms happen. If not your own, once your neighbors know you keep bees you will get calls. If you have a good year your hive will expand and you will need to keep ahead of it and not be in an emergency situation.

Hey! That's what I was going to tell him! Larry

Irina · June 06, 2011, 12:57:17 PM

Kathyp..
Could you please expand your sentence - "Not all hives swarm just because they start swarm cells".
At the same time... they create the swarm cells after they decided to swarm...????
Thanks, Irina
"Always learning"

Kathyp · June 06, 2011, 01:10:34 PM

i guess that was a little confusing. some hives just make queen cups over and over, but don't swarm. a queen cup has no larva in it. i have one hive that starts queen cells all the time and does not swarm, although i'm sure they have change queen several times over the years. if i take those queen cells and use them in another hive, they will be completed, so i know they are good.

when a hive has already decided to swarm, they will make queen cells. if they have decided to swarm, removing the queen cells will not stop them. so....you don't know the mind of the bees and if you remove those cells, you run a good risk of ending up with a queenless hive.

best bet is to split the hive by taking the old queen out and starting a new hive.

don't know if this helps. maybe someone can give you a better explanation :)

skatesailor · June 07, 2011, 12:00:39 AM

Quote from: skatesailor on June 06, 2011, 12:17:41 PM
One recuuring theme I see from new beekeepers is that they don't have extra supplies lying around. My advice for anyone starting out is spend a few bucks and have at least one extra hive, better two, in reserve. Swarms happen. If not your own, once your neighbors know you keep bees you will get calls. If you have a good year your hive will expand and you will need to keep ahead of it and not be in an emergency situation.

About an hour after I posted this I got the third call in four days about a cutout. When I get a chance I will download pictures of the first cutout, 4' by 4' by 10". A massive convoluted hive. Its home now and all I have to do is staighten it out.

antaro · June 08, 2011, 03:21:32 AM

Well, on the advice of all you wonderful folk, today I acquired a new hive setup.
Just finished putting the first round of paint on it and will finish up tomorrow. This weekend I will dive back into the hive and try to determine whether or not they still have swarm on the mind. If so, I will split the hive as suggested, assuming I can find the queen.

If I can't find the queen, should I still split if it looks like there is a good amount of bees around and they have made new queen cells? Or is that too high a risk as they may have already swarmed?