Getting ready to swarm????

[fstmkt]

I checked 6 frames and found 4 queen cells at the bottom. I tried to remove the Q cells. Should I have checked all of the frames? The ones I checked had plenty of capped brood. A few empty cells...and I don't recall seeing any new eggs. The hive was packed with bees. When I checked the frames bees were hanging off the bottom....at least an inch(or two) in some areas. So I added a shallow super. What should I do?

[rast]

 Sorry, no answer, just a question. Were you able to locate the "old" queen while you were in there? With my very, very limited knowledge, if I didn't find the queen, I would wonder if they were requeening themselves.
This week, I watched a feral hive on my property prepare to swarm. They left yesterday. Pure textbook (or I wouldn't have known thats what they were doing).
No, I couldn't find em.
Rick

[bassman1977]

I tried to remove the Q cells.

Removing the queen cells is a good way to get a queenless hive.  If there are enough cells, you can use them in a split if you are so inclined to do one, but keep some in the host hive.

What should I do?

It's probably too late to do anything.  Swarming is natural so I wouldn't dwell on it too much.  Just try to keep an eye out for where they go when they first swarm and catch them if you can.  If you get them, cool...new hive.  If not, gift to nature.

Check out http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm for Mr. Bush's swarm info.

With my very, very limited knowledge, if I didn't find the queen, I would wonder if they were requeening themselves.

If they are on the  bottoms of the frames, they are swarm cells...but technically I guess they are requeening themselves.   :?

No, I couldn't find em.

That sucks.   :-\

[Jerrymac]

Queen cells on the bottom of frames are most always swarm cells. Queen cells in the middle of frames are supercedure cells (replacing queen) Queen cells all over the place, emergency queen cells. They lost their queen.

[qa33010]

You may want to try and do what an older head told me to do last year when I had the same thing.  Split the hive.  He said it is like you created an artificial swarm.  I didn't get to it in time (sick) and they swarmed.  The three I reversed the brood boxes on never swarmed. Very labor intensive if I had more.  But he said the 'artificial swarm' has worked well for him.  He advised that I NEVER cut out queen cells unless I'm doing a split and can't find the old queen.  In this way I minumize the chance of going queenless in each hive.

[bassman1977]

You may want to try and do what an older head told me to do last year when I had the same thing.  Split the hive.  He said it is like you created an artificial swarm.  I didn't get to it in time (sick) and they swarmed.  The three I reversed the brood boxes on never swarmed. Very labor intensive if I had more.  But he said the 'artificial swarm' has worked well for him.  He advised that I NEVER cut out queen cells unless I'm doing a split and can't find the old queen.  In this way I minumize the chance of going queenless in each hive.

It is my understanding that you would put the old queen into the new hive/nuc, correct? 

[JP]

I had a swarm hive that had filled a deep and a medium since I housed them less than a yr ago, and they were gettin' at it pretty good, busting at the seams with swarm cells as you have described. That colony is now two super duper hives that contain a deep and two mediums each. That split was done 3 weeks ago, about. Make the split. Queen cells anytime can be a good thing, especially swarm cells, which make it split time. Want more colonies? Make splits, tis the time to do so.

...JP

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm#queencellsbad