Swarm cells!?

Spear · April 18, 2014, 09:41:08 AM

Went through my 'sunflower hive' today and found a bunch of swarm cells. Two of the cells were already open and Three of them were still sealed. I cut out the sealed cells and put them in the car. My son was sitting in the car so I jokingly told him to watch that they don't hatch and I went back to fetch the rest of my equipment, when I came back to the car my son says, "One of the queens has hatched!" I think he is joking but sure enough there was a the new queen walking around on her cell. I quickly caught her in the queen clip and drove home as fast as I could.
I now have her in a 'hatching cage' and the other two cell are also in 'hatching cages'. I have put some candy feed and a few drops of water in the bottom of each cage. I have also put them under a light to keep them warm. One of the other cells is hatching so I know that they are ok.
Now should I set up some mating nucs for them or just try and introduce the virgin queen into the queenless hives?

sc-bee · April 18, 2014, 12:32:23 PM

Way out of my league on this one and you probably already know more about it than I do. Only reason I am replying is I think time is critical here. As I said basically a swag for me so I hope some one comes in quickly.

I believe your time is limited on the new hatched queen in a cage by herself. She has to be feed. I am not sure she will feed herself. That is why they are shipped with attendants in a cage with them. Just my thinking. I would either cage her and put her somewhere to be fed banked in a hive or introduce her. I think you will be ok turning a virgin queen loose in a queenless mating nuc with nurse bees not sure about a queenless full blown hive strong with foragers? I am sure there are tricks to the trade to make it go better. I have heard of heavy smoking at release even placing a little honey on the virgin queen for them to groom her.

I would take the cells and make up queenless mating nucs and press an indention in the wax, with your thumb, on a frame and attach the cell as if it were drawn there. It does not take a lot of bees on a frame for a mating nuc, thus mini mating nucs. It should hatch there if you did not damage it. Better acce[acceptance than introducing virgin queens.

I will bee watching this thread to learn myself. Hope you get feedback soon. GOOD LUCK..... keep us posted.

BeeMaster2 · April 18, 2014, 01:03:44 PM

Spear,
You said you cut out the sealed ones. Were the ones that were opened, open on the bottom or the sides. Did you find a new queen in this hive? The fact that they are opening indicates that this hive probably swarmed a week ago. If you did not see a new queen and the opened ones were opened on the sides, you may want to save a queen to put back in the original hive. If there was a new queen in there then leave this hive alone to let her get established and a bunch of brood before you go in it again. At least 2 weeks.
Jim

iddee · April 18, 2014, 01:12:41 PM

You can release her into the queenless hives. They will accept an unmated queen.

Steel Tiger · April 18, 2014, 01:22:47 PM

If your "queenless" hive is the one that the queen cells came out of, there may be a queen in there. I would put the new queens into mating nucs and let them take care of business. Give the "possible" queen in the hive time to mate and start laying. If the queens in the mating nucs start laying before you see any eggs in the hive, then add a nuc queen to the hive.

Spear · April 18, 2014, 01:31:09 PM

I'm sure this hive swarmed on the 1st of April. I was going to do an inspection when I saw the swarm settling in the grass a few meters away and down the hill from my 2 hives & when I got to my hives they were very restless and a lot of bees still outside the hive.
So today I was expecting to find a young queen in this hive but instead found all the queen cells (The 2 open cells were opened from the inside - hatched ) there was a fare amount of capped brood - couldn't take too much time inspecting and looking for eggs as the weather was getting real bad (started to rain a bit) so I had to close up in a hurry.
Two of the three cell I took home have hatched the 3rd is quiet - no sign of life yet. I saw the 1 queen feeding herself when I put a few drops of water on the feed candy so I hope that they will be ok until tomorrow at least then I can hang them into one of the hive at my mothers place.

sc-bee · April 18, 2014, 02:03:02 PM

Yea they stay in roller cages in an incubator for a short period no problem but some folks think they can hold them over like quens shipped with attendants.... not! Thge swarm will leave anytime after the cell is capped usually around day eight. So that gives another 7 or so days for the queen to hatch and add two weeks to mate and lay. So depending on which of all the queen is there that emerged you may not spot her unless you are good at spoting virgin queens.

sc-bee · April 18, 2014, 02:07:45 PM

Quote from: iddee on April 18, 2014, 01:12:41 PM
You can release her into the queenless hives. They will accept an unmated queen.

I thought they would except an unmated queen I have seen Dwight porter do this. No tricks needed for a full blown hive either id? How long does the full blown hive need to be queenless? What about a nuc how long does it have to be queenlees for a virgin intro?

And last how long will the queen ive in a cage by herself not in a hive with no attendants? Not trying to take over your thread spear just a good learning opportunity :-D

Spear · April 18, 2014, 04:30:24 PM

Ok I rushed back to the two hives where I got the queen cells from and grabbed a few bees to put with the queens so that they will have attendants to look after them over night till I can get them into one of my other hives tomorrow...

GSF · April 18, 2014, 08:15:01 PM

I made the mistake of putting a queen and a couple of attendants by themselves in a clip. They died overnight. No loss, drone laying queen. I got her in the lemongrass oil bottle now.

BeeMaster2 · April 18, 2014, 10:28:10 PM

Two of the three cell I took home have hatched the 3rd is quiet - no sign of life yet. I saw the 1 queen feeding herself when I put a few drops of water on the feed candy so I hope that they will be ok until tomorrow at least then I can hang them into one of the hive at my mothers place.

Bee careful adding water to the candy. Add the water to the screen away from the candy.
Jim

Spear · April 19, 2014, 06:02:27 AM

Well all are still alive this morning but the 3rd cell has not hatched yet - have some nurse bees and candy just in case it dose hatch. Will be heading out to my moms to hang them in the hives there and release them on sunday or monday depending on weather.

Steel Tiger · April 19, 2014, 06:21:29 AM

Two out of three isn't bad. That's why bees make so many queen cells.

TenshiB · April 19, 2014, 01:01:09 PM

Had some queen cells hatch this year after I cut them out of their hives and I quickly gave them back to those hives before I left them alone. My thinking for doing so is that the hives were anticipating THOSE queens.. I kept the ones that didn't hatch and hung them in a "split" that was left behind after we performed a "shake" or "shook" swarm... Not sure if things will turn out okay or not. Time will give me that answer. [=

Spear · April 19, 2014, 02:23:35 PM

Well went to my mother and decided to put the 2 queens into 2 of the hives that we are pretty sure are queenless. The one hive is one that we suspect has a laying worker the other is one that we did an unintended split because it had brood in both boxes when we started moving them into their new hive. The unhatched queen cell we made a mini mating nuc and put it in there.

I'm going to start a new thread for what we found in suspected laying worker hive with pics of the one frame that we removed from them.

Thanks for all the responses I really enjoy this forum and always find good advice here :)

TenshiB · April 20, 2014, 12:50:49 AM

Laying workers are a huge hassle! The best way to correct it is to hang a mated queen in there beside a frame of emerging brood (donated from a strong hive). Keep the queen in a cage long enough for the emerging brood to see HER as "mama" and hopefully the rest of the hive will come around.. Release the good Q in several days and keep your fingers crossed. [=