What should I have done? - swarmed

[Dabbler]

Another first year beek question.

April 30th, I installed a 5 Fr deep nuc into positions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 of a 10 Fr medium box using a 3? shim to account for the frame height difference. Feeding about 2 qts of 1:1 syrup / week. Temps have typically been lows of mid 40?s at night and upper 50?s in the day so I left the wide slot entrance reducer in.

Tried to inspect weekly for wax drawing, stores and general colony build and health but the volume of bees on the nuc frames made viewing the comb very difficult (see pix). New frames have been drawn steadily (4/5 new frames now drawn) and was able to see syrup & some pollen in a number of cells. 

Yesterday?s inspection showed 2 capped swarm cells and 2 additional filled, but not yet capped, swarm cells on two adjacent deep frames. I was going to cut them out, but decided against it after remembering other postings. A bit later it occurred to me that it was a lot easier to see the comb and really inspect. Hive weight is down about 3 lbs from previous week?s measurement.

So . . . .  I assume I have ?fallen victim? to a swarm, lost my original queen and ~ half my bees. I didn?t expect to have a swarming issue after 1 month and with some empty frames in box.
My question (finally! ) is,   what could I have done differently to try to prevent this?

There was certainly lots of empty frames some with newly drawn wax . Should I have inserted new frames between the nuc brood frames to give them more room?

Should I have shaken bees off the frames during inspection? Blowing at them wasn?t getting the job done. This would ID a problem perhaps but still what should I have done about it?

The cow is apparently out of the barn but any suggestions on how to keep the door shut next time would be appreciated.

[Psparr]

Moving a frame into the brood best might have helped. Being that cold it was probably hard for them to make it to the outer frames to work them. Not much you can do now but get what's left built up.

[BeeMaster2]

Probably not much you could have done if they had empty drawn frames available. I had a hive in my observation hive swarm after just barely surviving a winter, no more than the number of bees that would fit in the space between my 2 cupped hands. They swarmed  with only the bottom 2 frames of brood and 6 empty frames above them. I had fed them a special pollen/sugar water feed that really boosted the brood pattern very fast. I have not used it since.
Jim

[iddee]

If your pic is of a q cell, first off, they don't build swarm cells on top bars.

Secondly, the queen doesn't have laying room if she must split the brood nest to lay. Check and see if the outer nuc frames are pollen. If so, keep the brood frames together, but put empties between the outer brood frames and the pollen frames. Then she will use them.

Supercedure is rampant among package bees, so my guess is they are replacing her, rather than swarmed.

[KeyLargoBees]

+1 to idee

One of my packages last year superceded three times before they were happy and kept a queen.

This year ....all swarms and no packages :-)

[Dabbler]

Iddee - Pic was just intended to show the volume of bees on frame making it difficult to see the comb. The swarm cells I saw were hanging off the bottom bar and looked like all the photos in the books.
Thanks for the advice on moving the outside frames. Now that the volume of bees is reduced and I can see the comb I will shift the frames accordingly.

[Acebird]

You waited too long to expand the hive.  If there are so many bees that you cannot see the comb then give them more space by adding another box.  The hard part is you have deep frames and it sounds like you want a hive with all mediums.  If position 2 and 8 were actually medium frames you could have used those two frames to expand into the next medium box above.
IMO if this was actually a nuc and not a package then the feeding did you in because the queen rapidly ran out of space.  If it was actually a package the feeding accelerated the growth and you reacted too late.

[iddee]

""4/5 new frames now drawn) ""

Ace, they were not out of space. The pollen may have made them think so, but adding another box wouldn't help.

[Acebird]

In Buff, NY when it was 60 during the day and 38'ish at night they are not going to use those new outside frames for brood.  Meanwhile nectar (feed) is coming in full force from the beekeeper.  I think they backfilled the broodnest and swarmed.  The OP thinks they swarmed.  The bees did not swarm if they did not backfill the broodnest so I conclude that they ran out of room.
If he had got them to expand up and break that barrier (deep to medium) the queen could still lay.  And yes I know it is a chimney but in warmer weather and a larger population they will fill out the sides without any problem.  I do not worry one I ota about empty side frames (especially in a 10 frame) in upstate NY in May.  I worry about population and it appears the hive had the population to support going up.  Maybe I am wrong.

I am sure when I get to FL it will be a whole lot different.  So much so I probably won't want bees.

[BeeMaster2]

Ace,
"I am sure when I get to FL it will be a whole lot different.  So much so I probably won't want bees."
What is wrong with FL?
Depending where you go, you won't have to depend on one flow, some areas have as many as 4 flows. One beekeeper in Tampa Bay area documented making 1600 pounds of honey off of 4 hives. He exceeded the hobbyist limit of $15,000 with just 4 hives.
Jim

[Acebird]

Jim, there is nothing wrong with FL, it is me.  I can't find queens or eggs so my splitting technique is simply taking a stack and dealing the deck where the queenless side hopefully makes it own queen.  That means open mating with the potential of AHB.  Secondly, in the south you can't be careless about open space in the hive because of SHB at least that is what I read.  Storing empty supers can be an issue.  I store my empty supers right next to my hives.  As long as I get these supers on the hive by June there is no problem.  Everything that I have read about the south says that you can't pile on 5 supers at one time without getting slimmed.  Thirdly without a good long dearth and broodless period that I have up here my luck with treatment free may not work so well.
So in a nutshell I don't think my style of beekeeping will be successful in FL.  Nothing wrong with beekeeping in FL, just the way I do it.

[BeeMaster2]

Brian,
Where in FL are you moving to?
If it is North of I-10, AHB should not bee a problem.
With SHB, the biggest problem is uncovered comb, especially dark comb and pollen filled comb.
Storing drawn supers are a problem. They have to be protected from wax moths.
Jim

[Acebird]

West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens ... Near that area.