Hive split & swarm question

antaro · June 12, 2011, 02:17:05 AM

So, at the advice of many on the forum I bit the bullet and bought another hive to split my girls who were looking to swarm. It went well and I split the frames evenly, getting a nice mix of brood, honey, and pollen in each. I provided the strongest queen cells in the original hive but put a few cells in the nuc as I could not find the queen during the inspection or transfer. There were a few frames that had some eggs, but not particularly plentiful.

HOWEVER, while we were mid-split my friend noticed a large (couple thousand maybe?) conglomeration of bees on the underside of my screened bottom board. They were all coned together in what appeared to be a swarm position. My friend put his gloved finger into the middle and the bees paid little attention to him. Assuming that this was a (small) swarm, we knocked all those bees into the new hive (hoping to get the queen) and then closed up both hives.

Is this an odd scenario? Is it likely that my hive swarmed and rested on the bottom of the same hive? In the middle of the mass of bees on the bottom board there was even a bit of comb being built. What's the haps with all this?

Michael Bach · June 12, 2011, 08:17:13 AM

Could have been a virgin queen that returned and found the underside of the hive. I has happened to me before.

If the hive has "swarm fever" it is hard to stop them. When workers decide to swarm, well they will anyway in most cases.

I split one of my hives twice and it still swarmed. It actually swarmed minutes after the last inspection to see how they were doing after the last split.

If you didn't see alot of eggs, that suggests that them might have already swarmed or the workers have stopped feeding the old queen getting her ready for flight thus reducing her egg laying.

Did you hear any odd noises from the hive? Workers will harrass the old queen keeping her moving to lose weight and keep her from laying and force her out of the hive.

FRAMEshift · June 12, 2011, 10:44:32 AM

I think you have diagnosed the situation correctly and you did exactly the right thing. They could swarm again of course but you will still end up with two strong hives.

antaro · June 12, 2011, 02:06:11 PM

Thanks for the responses, folks!
Always nice to hear that I possibly did something right! Might be a first since I started this hobby.

TerraJoy · June 12, 2011, 02:45:29 PM

I had the same scenario happen to me yesterday!! Tell me how it goes for you...

So far today my bees seem a little off... both hives have bees outside of it... did all your bees go inside?

antaro · June 12, 2011, 05:34:04 PM

Both hives seem to have stayed inside. Not much loafing around out front.
My original hive appears to be business as usual. I put on an entrance reducer due to their diminished work force and am feeding with both sugar water and pollen patty. The hive seems active today and they are trucking in pollen, something that they had previously stopped doing. No doubt in response to the fact that I cut their hive in half.

The nuc is much more calm but it definitely has bees flying in and out. That alone is somewhat surprising to me as I thought that all foragers would leave the nuc and return to the original hive, but some seem to be going to the new hive. Yesterday after I split there were a good 10 bees fanning pheromones so I am hopeful that I got the queen and they are convincing the crew that they like their new home.

antaro · June 12, 2011, 07:59:43 PM

Also, for those experienced: I was also wondering if I should be concerned about robbing between my original hive and my nuc which are just a few feet apart. I thought I saw a few bees cruise out of the nuc hive and go over to the original hive today, but I am not sure that could be considered robbing since they may just be foragers deciding to return to their original home.

Are there any tell-tale signs of robbing? Is that a common issue with a nuc? How long before guard bees are established in a nuc?

Regardless of the few bees that may be participating, I have several bees leaving and arriving at the nuc with seeming purpose. So perhaps they like their new home?

antaro · June 20, 2011, 02:48:26 AM

So I checked out the two hives for the first time today. Found all sorts of crazy stuff.

Nuc had no eggs and I couldn't find a queen. Not a ton of bees either. Nothing drawn out in the upper deep that I added upon split. There was plenty of capped brood and pupae in a variety of states. But again, no eggs.
Could have been a recent swarm? Or perhaps they were just building up their population from the split that was only a week ago.
This hive had lots of old/torn open queen cells (swarm) from the frames that I put in during the split. Appeared to have one swarm cell in construction.

Original hive had a TON of bees. A lot. No eggs. No larvae. Some capped brood, but limited. Nothing drawn out on the upper 10 frames.
Lots of open/torn queen cells. Also a lot of new queen cells. Both supercede and swarm. Found a queen that looked young walking around. Not sure whether the new queen cells were from construction before the new queen was born, or whether they hive has plans to leave.

My hypothesis is that during the split last week I got the original queen and transferred her to the nuc hive. She laid eggs, but for whatever reason either swarmed or was killed. Hence all the pupae, but no eggs. I hope that I have a new queen in there who was just not laying eggs yet and will by the next inspection. Either that or my hive is queenless.
The original hive would have been queenless if I had managed to snag their queen during the split. Thereby they created a ton of new queen cells. Since then a queen has been born but has not gotten around to destroying the other cells or spreading her pheromones fully. Hoping that there will be eggs by next week.

Thoughts? Am I on the right track?

caticind · June 20, 2011, 01:15:43 PM

Hard to tell for sure, but I would say your original queen was present at the split, ended up in the nuc, then swarmed. You should have virgins in both nuc and the original hive, and you spotted one of them. The original hive might be planning an afterswarm, but there's relatively little you can do about that.

Is your original hive one fully drawn crowded box with one mostly empty box on top? If so, you might want to exchange a couple of the drawn frames with empty frames so that there is space below and inducement to expand upwards.

antaro · June 20, 2011, 01:49:16 PM

Quote from: caticind on June 20, 2011, 01:15:43 PM
Is your original hive one fully drawn crowded box with one mostly empty box on top? If so, you might want to exchange a couple of the drawn frames with empty frames so that there is space below and inducement to expand upwards.

That is exactly what is happening. In both hives, but especially in the original.
Is there no reprucussions for switching up frames within the boxes? Given my circumstance should I go in and do that today (just inspected yesterday) or just wait until inspection next weekend?

Doing whatever I can to keep the hive together and minimize swarming.

caticind · June 20, 2011, 02:18:59 PM

No particular repercussions. People discourage moving frames because they don't want new beeks swapping them around willy-nilly just for laziness. The benefit of getting them going drawing out the top box is worth it. Try to place the comb you move in the same position and facing the same direction. Also, make sure the empty frames you move down go between fully drawn frames, not next to each other.

You can go ahead and do this, or wait, however you like. If they are determined to swarm again, they likely will anyway. But if you want to try to discourage swarming, you should give them the impression of more space ASAP. No need to spend more than a few minutes in the hive to do this.

antaro · June 20, 2011, 07:18:26 PM

Thanks for the advice! I will see what happens and post!

antaro · June 20, 2011, 10:59:50 PM

Went into both hives and switched out frames as discussed/recommended.
I'll do my next inspection this weekend and we'll see what happens!

antaro · June 21, 2011, 03:04:00 AM

After seeing the number of bees in the original hive today I decided to take off the entrance reducer (that I had put back in place to manage the decrease in numbers since the split). As soon as I did this my hive had some immediate bearding going that lasted into the night. It is 11pm and I still have some number hanging out.

Perhaps the continued queen cells were due to lack of ventilation? Seems odd with an empty deep up top and a screened bottom board.

Is bearding any indication of swarm activity? Or just cooling?

caticind · June 21, 2011, 11:32:56 AM

Bearding is a behavior that facilitates ventilation by getting some of the bees out of the hive so they can fan and so their waste heat isn't added to the hive. It does mean that you have LOTS of bees.

So while bearding isn't a direct indicator of swarminess, it is an indicator of possible crowding, which can in turn encourage swarming.

Give them a day or so to figure out what's going on with the top deep. Taking off the entrance reducer and opening up some space in the bottom deep will have aided in cooling the hive. Soon they should start to move up and the bearding will probably decline.

Since you still have capped queen cells, they may swarm anyway. Other than what you have already done, the only other thing you can do to dissuade them is to split off another nuc with a couple of queen cells - not to remove the queen cells, but to further reduce the population. Sometimes they are just determined to swarm no matter what...