Hive Swarmed - Now What?

PhilK · February 14, 2016, 06:35:12 AM

G'day,

We have two hives. One has always been a bit stronger and the other weaker. We noticed recently (last few days) that the activity at hive B (weaker hive) was a lot less than ever before, and almost absent compared to hive A. Today we decided to suit up and have a look inside, and while lighting the smoker noticed a swarm sitting in the tree behind the hive. Luckily we had a spare hive, bottom board, lid, and wired frames. We chucked some foundation into them and hived the swarm. We gave them a frame of half capped honey, and a frame of open brood as I heard that that can help 'anchor' a swarm - took both of these from the stronger hive and shook the bees off. We didn't see the queen but got most of the bees in the box so assume she is in there.

We did an inspection on hive B (that swarmed) and found there was very few bees and capped brood, and very little open brood (maybe none at all). There was about 6-7 swarm cells in total on the bottom of 2-3 frames.. most were sealed but one had the lid popped as if there was a recent emerging queen, but we didn't see any queen in the inspection.

I have a couple of questions:

1. The newly captured swarm is in a box not far from their parent hive - will the bees flying from the new hive return to their old hive as they're used to living there?

2. What do we now do to hive B? It's got very little capped brood, very few bees, and I'm unsure of if it has a queen or not.. There are sealed queen cells and one open one, are there going to be after swarms now? I'm sure they'll raise their own as they have plenty of stores to tide them over, but I'm thinking as winter is on the way I should buy a queen and put her in hive B so we don't have to wait 4 weeks for the new one to start laying...

3. I'm confused as to why they swarmed.. almost all the frames in the brood box were good empty brood comb, no capped brood... the queen should have had plenty of space to lay?

Thanks for any advice - big shock to have a random swarm (wish we inspected the brood box 2 weeks ago when we looked at them!), but i'm glad they settled in our yard and we caught them. Hopefully they'll go OK but I'm a little worried about their parent hive.

GSF · February 14, 2016, 12:03:40 PM

Phil, I've inspected hives just to have them swarm "less" than two weeks later. Is there a lot of drones still around? I'd give the swarm a couple frames of drawn comb to help jump start them. You'll be surprised just how quick the swarm will draw out comb. Feed them also to help this.

Yes, some will return to the old hive. Watch the activity at the entrance. If one hive is way ahead of the other then you may want to consider swapping the two hives.

PhilK · February 14, 2016, 07:27:08 PM

Thanks, will leave them be for a week and check to see how they are going! Unfortunately we don't have any drawn comb, just foundation..

Any thoughts as to why they swarmed, when there was plenty of empty brood comb for the queen to lay in?

Should I just let the parent hive requeen themselves? What's the risk of afterswarms with the numerous capped queen cells I saw

GSF · February 15, 2016, 07:07:58 AM

Phil, Healthy hives swarm. If the flow is over the swarm may have been what I've heard call a "population reduction" swarm. You said very few bees, how many frames of bees do you have in the weak hive? What about drones? If there's no drones flying around then you'll end up with a poorly mated queen or one that's not mated at all. Feed the swarm, they'll draw out comb pretty good if you do. In my area we're towards the end of winter, I don't know much about yall's weather.

BeeMaster2 · February 15, 2016, 08:25:53 AM

Phil,
What you described sounds like they did was super swarmed, my term. By that I mean they swarmed, and then a queen is allowed to hatch but not allowed to kill the other queens. She leaves with a swarm. A week later more bees are hatching and another Queen is allowed to hatch and she leaves with a swarm. By the time they are done, there are not enough bees to protect the hive from SHB.
Either reduce the hive down to just what the bees can cover (freeze the frames to kill any bugs) or combine the swarm with the old hive. You will probably still have to reduce the size of the hive. When this happens here, the SHB from miles around swarm the hive. They smell the stress of a swarming hive and a weakened hive.
Jim

PhilK · February 15, 2016, 11:56:17 PM

We are in the last month of our summer here - very hot and humid. Autumn will be hot as well for about half of it. Only a few frames of bees - maybe 3-4 in the brood box. Lots of capped queen cells..

Hmm yeah I'm wondering if we potentially missed the first swarm (few days of decreased activity noted before we saw the swarm the other day), and they've issued after swarms with virgin queens... that's a concern! So you would recommend combining the swarm with the other hive?

BeeMaster2 · February 16, 2016, 12:50:11 PM

Quote from: PhilK on February 15, 2016, 11:56:17 PM
We are in the last month of our summer here - very hot and humid. Autumn will be hot as well for about half of it. Only a few frames of bees - maybe 3-4 in the brood box. Lots of capped queen cells..

Hmm yeah I'm wondering if we potentially missed the first swarm (few days of decreased activity noted before we saw the swarm the other day), and they've issued after swarms with virgin queens... that's a concern! So you would recommend combining the swarm with the other hive?

With only 3-4 frames of bees and you are going into winter, you have 2 choices, one remove all but 5 frames,keep all of the brood, and put them in a nuc and give the remaining frames to the swarm in another nuc. Place only enough drawn frames that they can cover, leaving a couple of empty drawn frames in the middle for the queen to start laying. Two, combine them with paper and reduce the frames to what they can handle. I would make two nucs and if one of the queens does not survive mating, a real problem here, then combine.

Jim

Acebird · February 16, 2016, 05:51:21 PM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on February 16, 2016, 12:50:11 PM
I would make two nucs and if one of the queens does not survive mating, a real problem here, then combine.

Jim

jim, is the lack of mating success due to the queen getting eaten?

BeeMaster2 · February 16, 2016, 10:19:07 PM

Quote from: Acebird on February 16, 2016, 05:51:21 PM
Quote from: sawdstmakr on February 16, 2016, 12:50:11 PM
I would make two nucs and if one of the queens does not survive mating, a real problem here, then combine.

Jim

jim, is the lack of mating success due to the queen getting eaten?

Yes by dragonflies, bee catchers and birds. Mostly dragonflies.
Jim

PhilK · February 16, 2016, 11:41:48 PM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on February 16, 2016, 12:50:11 PM
With only 3-4 frames of bees and you are going into winter, you have 2 choices, one remove all but 5 frames,keep all of the brood, and put them in a nuc and give the remaining frames to the swarm in another nuc. Place only enough drawn frames that they can cover, leaving a couple of empty drawn frames in the middle for the queen to start laying. Two, combine them with paper and reduce the frames to what they can handle. I would make two nucs and if one of the queens does not survive mating, a real problem here, then combine.

Jim

Thanks for the advice! Won't be able to go into the hives for another couple of days unfortunately, but a very experienced beekeeper (who actually sold us these hives) is coming to check on them with us.

The parent hive of the swarm is actually very busy and bustling at the entrance way again - I wonder if a lot of the swarm bees have returned 'home' when going out for flights as their new hive is only a few metres away.

Winter in Brisbane isn't really winter, and I've heard we can get honey crops through winter.. so hopefully it won't be a death sentence to a smaller hive. Will check on them both again anyway and see how many frames of bees they really have!

SlickMick · February 17, 2016, 01:11:27 AM

Phil
I have kept bees in the eastern suburbs of Brisbane for nearly 20 years and the last thing I have had to worry about is winter. There is an abundance of flora coming into flower between now and Spring. A lot of nectar producing shrubs and trees flower at this time. Buckinghamia is flowering now and callistamen and grevillea are still to come. Our climate is such that Spring seems to start early each year.
As you drive around check the stuff in flower. It is really an eye opener.
Check out the following. https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/downloads/12-014
I am at Carindale where are you?

Mick

PhilK · February 17, 2016, 02:07:41 AM

Quote from: SlickMick on February 17, 2016, 01:11:27 AM
I am at Carindale where are you?

Mick

Thanks for the info Mick, good to hear the bees will have some nectar sources coming. I really need to brush up on my plant identification/knowing which plants are good for bees!

I'm in Paddington