Swarm aversion with queen excluders

[yes2matt]

Here is what I found and what I did with the equipment I had on hand, and I'm hoping for feedback on what to do next and when.

I found a single deep overwintered hive slap full of bees. It was getting late and I had someone waiting. So I did look thru but couldn't find the queen. But there were four frames with nearly complete queen cells and one just-capped cell.

So I moved the box of bees off the bottom board, and I put a queen excluder on that bottom board, then an empty box. I put a frame of bees that I knew had no Qcell in that box. Then one by one I shook all of the bees down into the empty box on the original stand. After I had shaken off each frame I inspected it for Qcells.  If it had none, it went in the new box. If it had one or more, it went back in the old box.  Then I filled the gaps in the new box with blank frames. I put another queen excluder on top of that box. Then I put the old box with four frames of brood and Qcells on top of that, and then the cover with a wedge entrance at the top facing the other way.

So I think the original queen is trapped in the new box between the excluders, and bees can get up to the top box to nurse the brood. And they will finish capping the Qcells in the next couple days.

What now? My objective would be to keep the main of the colony intact, because its about time for honeymakin', and this is a great colony so I wouldn't mind splitting the four frames with capped cells into mating nucs, but I'm not sure how much time I have ... am I cool to wait a week or do I need to get back down there tomorrow after the nurses have had a chance to move up?

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[TheHoneyPump]

On the day that the queen cell is capped, move it no later than on day 5 after the capping day. If you move it too soon, the developing queen may be damaged from the disturbance. If you move it too late, there is risk of missing it and having virgins running around.  Here is the basic math of queen development using capping day (9) as the trigger. You can figure it out and markup your calendar based on what you saw on the day you did the work.
- day 8, the cell is elongated and coned nearly capped
- day 9, the cell is capped
- day 9 thru day 13, larva is pupating, delicate, do not disturb
- day 13, makeup mating nuc colony
- day 14, move the ripe cell to the mating nuc. No iffs, maybes, or butts. Move and place on day 14
- day 15 thru 17, the queen emerges from the cell. Some finish early, some finish late.
- day 18 in the evening just before dusk, quietly look in the nuc to confirm that the cell emerged properly. Look for nothing else, check the cell only. If you are bold and have good eyes, you may try to spot the virgin. Look her over closely that she has good legs, wings etc. She will not be full size. She will be small. Queens continue to grow quite a bit in the couple of days after emerging.
- day 16 thru 20 the virgin queen roams the hive, grows, hardens, kills rivals, stay out do not disturb.
- day 20 thru 26, in good weather, queen mates. Poor weather, she waits up to two weeks, stay out.
- day 26 thru 32, if she is not lost or killed, the queen starts laying her first eggs, go have a look at 3 day intervals.

PS: with cells capped or nearly capped there is a good chance that the mother queen is prepared to leave if not already left. If she is still in there then your QEs should trap her. Nicely done! She will however stay in swarm mode if she is left in the hive. What I would do is move her to a nuc or full box with 2 frames of bees and brood. In the mother hive I would leave 1 maybe 2 of the nicest capped queen cells. The rest of the cells would go to mating nucs. In this way, the hive will requeen itself with a ripe cell. Extra queens are made by the other cells in mating nucs. And by moving the momma queen to a different box with lots of room and few bees she will feel like she has swarmed.

By letting the main hive roll through the flow with a cell-virgin-new queen in progress you will also get a significant honey-making boost. Brood consumes a lot of nectar. While the new queen roams around and gets her mating done, there is no new brood to feed for a week or two. During this time, the honey production is really boosted.  Thats how to make a high volume honey pump ;)

Hope that helps.

[cao]

I agree with, and well said by TheHoneyPump.