If the bees don't leave is it still a swarm? Now what?

BEE C · July 04, 2006, 02:15:47 AM

I was showing my hives to some kids when I noticed queen cells...after the tour was over I tore open both hives. Hive A has three brood boxes. I found very little capped brood, perhaps three frames worth, and half a frames worth of open brood. Honey was plugged everywhere. I noticed one queen cell. I left it as I assume there is no queen. There was two supers of honey frames above the queen excluder which is now in the yard somewhere, wherever it got flung...Hive B is smaller, it has two brood boxes. I found seven peanut shaped queen cells which I scooped out, except for one, as I found the same problem of hardly any brood capped or not. The queen excluder is somewhere in the tall grass next to the other one now. There is two honey supers that were above the QE, almost capped, as well as honey plugged up everywhere down below. I had been adding boxes when six of ten frames were covered with bees. I believe the swarming has to do with the QE. The main flow is on hard, blackberries. What should I do? My mentor says leave them for a week and see if one queen has emerged. There are so many bees I had trouble examining frames even with plenty of smoke. Eight of ten frames are completely covered with bees! My mentor says I had a swarm in both, but the number of bees during the day 3 oclock is crazy. I haven't noticed any decline in house bees or foragers, in fact I wasn't checking for queen cells more than once a week because the house bees were completely covering the top of the frames and most frames were thick with bees. If any problem was apparent I thought the slow down of larvae over the last few weeks and honey being plugged away everywhere was, needing to be adressed. I have added full boxes of combless foundation to see it built up and filled with honey within a week? I'm confused as to how to get these hives through winter, and prevent them from leaving. My mentor says they swarmed, but the bees havent went anywhere. I did catch a swarm in the yard on the 21st or so, and its had a virgin queen added and doing fine. I don't think it came from these hives as it has almost as many bees as Hive B. Advice?

Finsky · July 04, 2006, 02:26:20 AM

Difficult to say what is going on. Do you have canola nearby?

It sounds that your hives are growded. They are too small to handle nectar flow.

Put extra deep under both hive and keep entrance wide open. Then put brood frames to seconf box and lift full honey frames topmost.

Next to brood put half filled combs and some foundations in one group.

Search the proper amount of boxes. When bees occupy only half of topmost box when you uncover the hive, the room is good in this time of year.

Dont block hive with exluder or whole box of foundations.

Don't put frames so that every two is foundation and every two reaby comb. Combs will fatten unreasonable fat and foundation remains thin.

Michael Bush · July 04, 2006, 10:19:37 AM

They either already swarmed (most likely) or are about to. Often a strong hive swarms and you can't tell a difference in the population. Sometimes it throws a big enough swarm that it's obvious. But either way it costs you a lot of honey.

I would have done a split (because of the queen cells). Hopefully they won't end up queenless. The one queen cell may or may not emerge. There's a reason they make a lot of them. :)

An excluder will only make things worse.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm

BEE C · July 04, 2006, 02:16:29 PM

Thanks for the reply guys. You might be right finsky, the hive might have been to small to handle the nectar flow. I think the QE made the bottom fill out too quickly, though I'm not sure what happened to my two new queens, why they would both go caputz. I noticed a slow down of brood and larvae about two weeks ago, but my mentor said sometimes they do that. I guess they were getting ready to swarm by shrinking the queen. Queens are still available to me so I think I might clean out all queen cells, and either get grafted larvae and try to make my own, or break down and buy some. Honey is going to be sacrificed this year, but at this point I want more to get them through winter. Thanks for your thoughts.

Finsky · July 04, 2006, 03:15:38 PM

Your hive is small and it takes almost one month if you raise your own queen. If you buy laying queen, you get one brood cycle during that time.

Hive will get hive full of honey because they have not brood to be feeded.

Brian D. Bray · July 05, 2006, 01:53:33 AM

I would agree that the hives have already swarmed. The brood that remained in the cells at the time have hatched filling up the hive so that the swarming is not as noticeable. In the mean time it sounds as if the hive was well on its way to becoming honey bound so that the new queen would have difficulty getting up to speed.
Save the Excluders, you can always make a poultry cage out of them.
You now know why I call a queen excluder a swarm generator. You've also found that bees will swarm before the new queen hatches.
Your focus needs to be on stabalizing the hive into a normal state so that it can winter over. That will evidently takes new queens either by excepting the ones from the queen cells (if they survive their mating flights and not end up as some birds snack), raise new ones from brood taken from another hive, or buy new queens.

Finsky · July 05, 2006, 03:12:16 AM

Quote from: Brian D. BraySave the Excluders, you can always make a poultry cage out of them.
You now know why I call a queen excluder a swarm generator. .

After 45 years I have not learned to use excluder in honey production. I use when I raise queens.

I use much excluder when I pick wild blueberries from woods and I clean rubbish from them. 10 liter per hour is good speed for berries.

Cowberry is fast to pick. It is about 20 liter per hour - but not with mere hands!

BEE C · July 05, 2006, 05:07:37 AM

well today was a better day. I found young brood and eggs that had been laid in a nice pattern, and the bees were cleaning out honey from the middle of the frames. Thats in the one hive that most likely swarmed and created the swarm I caught. The other hive I found nothing but more queen cells. I was laying them aside once removed and examining them later. One cell I opened gently with tweezers I noticed a queen about to hatch. ( I eat the royal jelly out of the ones that are younger) As soon as I opened it, the queen flew out. Now this was outside of the hive house two feet away from the hive entrance. Would she possibly fly back to the hive? Is this too much to assume? I culled all other queen cells thoroughly today. If nothing else, I will graft some eggs from the swarm I just requeened, which is doing nicely now. I know this will take some time, but when I called about queens today all local suppliers are sold out. I consolidated the brood frames for both hives and put a brood box of foundation and half built combs under each. The honey frames I stored in the upper boxes. I plan on checking again in two days for queen cells in both. Thanks for the ideas for the QE guys!