Walk away split, swarm prevention.

[van from Arkansas]

This is old school to most, however a few newer beeks may benefit.

Yesterday during routine inspections I found queen cells in a packed hive, I mean loaded with bees; bees in top of bees.  SWARM MODE so I did a walk away split. So many bees I could not find the queen.  So I split the hive into two separate hive bodies and walked away having no idea which box the queen is in.  This was to relieve congestion making it easier to find the queen.  This morning, that is the next day, I approached the two splits: one was calm with bees coming and going, the other was LOUD, buzzing with bees very nervous eradicate movement.  The calm bees have the queen.

I looked into the calm hive and quickly found the queen as congestion was relieved and now I can see individual  bees.  Now the queen cells are in the queenless hive and the queen is in a new location with lots of nurse bees and hopefully the loss of the swarming tendency.  Why nurse bees you might ask, since I moved the hive with the queen, the worker bees returned to the original location which has the queen cells and no queen.  Therefore the newly located hive with the queen has mostly nurse bees that can?t yet fly so I doubt the hive with swarm.

Now, if I did not explain well or created some confusion don?t hesitate to ask or to correct.
Blessings

[The15thMember]

This is a very helpful post for me, since I'm heading into my first swarm season.  Everything made complete sense to me, but I do have a couple follow-up questions.  What would have happened differently if the queen had been in the original hive?  Also, what do you do about the queen cells that are in the hive that now contains the queen?

[van from Arkansas]

Member: What would have happened differently if the queen had been in the original hive?

I would find the queen and move her to the newly created hive I relocated.

All frames with queen cells were placed in the original queenless hive.  I moved the entire frame with the queen cells.  Removing individual queen cells is difficult for me.

If I have to deal with individual queen cells, there are kept in correct original position, never laid on sides.  There are stages of a newly capped queen cell that are extremely fragile whereas just prior to hatching the cells are safer to handle.
Blessings

[CoolBees]

This was very helpful Van. Thank you for taking the time to write it for those of us that are new to these things.

Alan

[blackforest beekeeper]

the original hive at the old location with all the swarm-cells might still and probably will - release some after-swarms. by getting the date right of their emergence (queens I mean), you can still harvest these.
make small artificial swarms (if it will be a nuc, maybe a liter, half one will do at your location; if just for raising the queens, they can be smaller, use mating-nuc-boxes and follow instructions) with a virgin queen each, put them into a well ventilated box in a basement (dark!) for about 3 days, at least 15 C, but no much warmer, spray them with a bit of water once or twice. after that you can move them out. best to another location. check on them: when you put the lights on, they will get loud. if it`s out, they should get calm again. they will build some comb in there. they need a was of sugar-patty or liquid feed on top. they will make a ball at the top just like a swarm.
These units, including the artificial pre-swarm you created, will build comb like crazy.
Have fun!

What I usually do - if I am not out for the most honey, but for the most nucs:
Remove the brood-nest completely, some open brood can be left, leave the old queen with the foragers at the old place.
Split the broodnest into nuc-boxes or full-size-boxes. they need a queen cell (btw: you do this while they are NOT YET CAPPED, be very careful with these and transport like you would drive with some raw eggs rolling around on your trailer) each. best in a location they can easily tend it (at the bottom bar it is not so good). Use at least one brood-comb with a cell and one other comb. queencell in  between. you may use more brood-frames, but the box has to have the right size, enough, I mean. Otherwise, if more queen-cells are given, they may still send off after-swarms. you might also just leave one cell. a nice one, well tended.
The box shouldn`t be too large, either, use a follower board for best results if no small enough boxes are at hand. alternatively use a frame of honey or pollen as a follower board.
One (entire!) frame of brood will release about 3 frames of bees. But do put in enouhg bees at the beginning so they can tend the queen cell right!
move the splits to another location.
when the first round of brood is about to emerge, give them enough room they will build natural comb like crazy.

in my opinion and experience, these may become very very good hives. a lot better than queens from emergency cells.


forgot something, but it may come up.

have fun! greatest time and greatest experiences. nothing more sexy in keeping bees than finding a well-hatched empty queen cell where it should be.

[van from Arkansas]

This day I checked the walk away split as the new queen should have emerged.  There were over a dozen queen cells being torn down with one intact queen cell.  I looked for the new Virgin Queen but I could not find her.  Maybe my fault as there are many bees, I also listen for pipping noise, no noise.

Do you think this one intact queen cell was missed by the bees and the new virgin queen?  I am asking as I was expecting ALL queen cells to be torn down.  The intact cell was isolated on frame 3, the queen cells torn down were on 4,5,6 of a 10 frame.

Of interest: brood cells are spit polished clean, I mean a glaze of a shine in each empty brood cell.  No eggs or larva.  One deep and a very heavy super full of honey.