how early in the year for swarm potential - in FLA?

tlynn · February 01, 2009, 06:07:55 PM

I have not yet (knowingly) experienced a swarm with my hives and was wondering if they could swarm this early in the year here in Central FLA. I inspected today and here's what my strong hive looks like - After opening the top all the frames of the brood box were covered in bees. It has one completely full capped frame (really exciting to see!) and two adjacent frames nearly full along with either eggs or larvae. It has two heavy frames of honey and tons of pollen. I found two capped queen cells on two outer frames on the frame faces close to the tops. So with a prolific queen like her, I wouldn't think they would want to supersede her. My thought was are they preparing to swarm? It's still getting cold at night, like 40s and 50s. Would they swarm in such conditions?

JP · February 01, 2009, 10:08:16 PM

Queen cells up top could be supercedure, or them just making queen cells. What kind of bees are you keeping? Russians for example are notorious for making queen cells.

Are you in a local club? You could ask club members or make a call to a local beek in the phonebook or call department of ag and ask them when your swarming season usually occurs.

Swarm cells are generally at the bottom of the frames.

...JP

Beaver Dam · February 01, 2009, 10:15:13 PM

Put the frame with the cells in a Nuc with honey and pollen.

tlynn · February 01, 2009, 11:30:10 PM

Quote from: JP on February 01, 2009, 10:08:16 PM
Queen cells up top could be supercedure, or them just making queen cells. What kind of bees are you keeping? Russians for example are notorious for making queen cells.

Are you in a local club? You could ask club members or make a call to a local beek in the phonebook or call department of ag and ask them when your swarming season usually occurs.

Swarm cells are generally at the bottom of the frames.

...JP

JP, this stock is from Purvis Bros. "Goldline" they call them. I think they are hybrid Italian, but not sure. Yes, I'll ask around at our monthly meeting in Tampa.

tlynn · February 01, 2009, 11:35:03 PM

Quote from: Beaver Dam on February 01, 2009, 10:15:13 PM
Put the frame with the cells in a Nuc with honey and pollen.

You think I should attempt this in January? How many frames of bees would I have to shake in to have enough population to keep themselves warm?

bailey · February 02, 2009, 01:06:37 AM

i would think it's a supercedure if the queen in 2 years or older.
did you see drones? if so i would make a split then watch for more signs of supercedure.

if they make the queen cells on the face of the comb again then i would make room in the brood nest and leave the queen cells in place.

this way you get a good split and then if the old queen fails you could recombine the split back to the parent hive.
bailey

kirkw · February 02, 2009, 01:32:02 AM

I have lost more swarms in February than any other month. The hive you described is probability getting ready to swarm. A good way to deal with it is to do an artificial swarm, that is to relocate the queen, open brood and young bees to new location and leave the queen cells and older bees at the existing location. The negative at this time of year is that our orange bloom starts in 3 or 4 weeks, splitting now will effect your honey production.

tlynn · February 02, 2009, 01:44:26 PM

Quote from: bailey on February 02, 2009, 01:06:37 AM
i would think it's a supercedure if the queen in 2 years or older.
bailey

Bailey, I bought the queen in September and she is a high producer. I wouldn't think she'd be even remotely close to failing.

Kirkw - How do I make sure I keep older bees in the original hive? Also I am a little concerned about splits as we are coming into another few nights of near freezing temps.

I have seen some guys pull the queen cells to "keep them from swarming" but I wonder if intervening like that can do more harm. I mean they are doing it for a reason. I suppose if they do swarm and I don't catch them at least there is a lot of brood.

JP · February 02, 2009, 02:46:17 PM

If you anticipate really cold weather this month then wait a few weeks to do your splits. Swarm cells are on the bottom of the frames, you said they were at the top of the frame.

...JP

tlynn · February 02, 2009, 03:26:37 PM

Quote from: JP on February 02, 2009, 02:46:17 PM
If you anticipate really cold weather this month then wait a few weeks to do your splits. Swarm cells are on the bottom of the frames, you said they were at the top of the frame.

...JP

Yes, this is the coldest time of year for us. Looks like 4 days of 50s in the days and near freezing at night. Cold fronts begin stalling to our north in March. I would imagine by then they would have done what they needed to do.

Cells were on frame faces toward top and to right side of frames 2 and 3 of a 10 frame hive, counting from outside.

kirkw · February 03, 2009, 12:17:39 AM

Kirkw - How do I make sure I keep older bees in the original hive? Also I am a little concerned about splits as we are coming into another few nights of near freezing temps.

The field bees will return to the original hive location. We should be back to day time temps. in the mid 70's by this weekend. I think the bees can handle the cold front.

I have seen some guys pull the queen cells to "keep them from swarming" but I wonder if intervening like that can do more harm. I mean they are doing it for a reason. I suppose if they do swarm and I don't catch them at least there is a lot of brood.

I've tried that also, it can buy you some time, but I have had little luck in preventing them from swarming. Splitting is the only thing that's worked for me. You can always recombine them later if you want an if you loss the the new queen during her mating flight you can pull resource from the queen right nuc and let them try again.

Brian D. Bray · February 03, 2009, 09:12:01 PM

Quote from: kirkw on February 03, 2009, 12:17:39 AM
I've tried that also, it can buy you some time, but I have had little luck in preventing them from swarming. Splitting is the only thing that's worked for me. You can always recombine them later if you want an if you loss the the new queen during her mating flight you can pull resource from the queen right nuc and let them try again.

When you split make sure you have undrawn frames in the brood nest. In a 10 frame hive there are usually 6-8 brood frames and 2-4 storage frames.
It looks like this: S S B B B B B B S S. So when you make the split it needs to look like this: S N N B B B N N S S, or similar. Placing the foundation adjacent to the brood frames is called opening up the brood nest. The bees need to now draw comb in the established brood nest. Usually bee drawing comb in a brood nest will not swarm, provided any existing queen cells were moved to a nuc.