swarm/supercedure question

[Scadsobees]

Question about swarming and supercedure...

So its the middle of swarm season.  I'd expect the strong hives to have some of that impulse now.

However what i've been seeing is somewhat puzzling.  2 hives that I've looked at look like they are going to swarm...there are swarm cells, lots of bees, not so much brood. 

And no queen(that I can find) or open brood, so she's not been laying for a couple of weeks.  And some of the queen cells look like emergency cells, some are definately swarm cells.  Some hatched queen cells, some destroyed, some not hatched yet and still viable.  But they don't look like they've swarmed.

What is going on?  The population is high enough that I doubt they've swarmed.  Supercedure?  But the queen was only 1 yr old, and some of the cells were definately swarm cells.

Do they sometime spontaneously supercede the queen without swarming, and if so, is there a way to know that they won't swarm?  I did a split anyway just in case, but that feels funny without much brood.

Thanks, Rick

[homer]

I have a hive that has superceeded the queen 4 times in the last year, and hasn't swarmed once.  From what I understand...the bees can decide (at any point in time) they don't like the queen and just kill her and start raising a new one.

As for the cells that may be swarm cells... during supercedure, the bees will just start raising queens in any cells that have eggs in them and are ready to go, those could happen to be at the bottom of a frame which would make them appear to be swarm cells.

As for those cells that look like the queen has emerged, you could have a virgin queen in the hive and she can be kind of hard to spot as she is likely to be much more flighty and not content to stay on the frames.  Check back again in a week and my guess is that you're going to see eggs.

[annette]

I just had a similar situation. The whole hive was filled with swarm cells, supercedure cells, top, bottom and middle. Large population.  The only difference with me, the whole hive was filled with drone brood.

I expected them to either swarm or replace a drone laying queen.

Well 2 weeks later all the queen cells have been destroyed and no evidence of any of them, no brood of any kind, a full hive population and I just found new eggs.

I think perhaps in my case, they replaced a drone laying queen.  I don't know either what really happened.

[Scadsobees]

I guess one of my concerns is that a virgin hatched out and they are holding her at bay long enough for the weather to clear and then they will swarm.  Thus the different states of queen cells (hatched, destroyed, and a few days from hatching) in the hives.

Really weird.  Saw that in 2 hives this year.

Rick

[Vibe]

I guess one of my concerns is that a virgin hatched out and they are holding her at bay long enough for the weather to clear and then they will swarm.  Thus the different states of queen cells (hatched, destroyed, and a few days from hatching) in the hives.

Really weird.  Saw that in 2 hives this year.

Rick

I have one hive that a condition like that will not surprise me much. Though I haven't pulled the frames to look yet. I've robbed about 1-1/2 gallons of honey so far trying to make some room in the hives (well the super anyway). But they are still bearding the front of the hive like I've never seen before. The whole front is covered to a depth of 2" or better of solid bees. I've captured swarms that had fewer bees than those congregated on the front wall. And they linked together like in a swarm ball. I've watched 3 separate drone flights with what looked like a hundred drones each on various days. I figured they were going to swarm, but I've seen no reduction in bees. I've had other irons in other fires and I'm out of frames to try and capture a swarm right now, or to try and split it. I just wish I knew what was going on.

On another note, one of my other hives looked to have brood above the queen excluder. This would be a bad thing wouldn't it? Like a laying worker?

[twb]

I wonder if weather is a factor here since you just described several (at least three) of my hives this season so far.  In one like this I added a queen in a newspaper combine after cutting the current Q cells so she'd have a better chance of being accepted.  Last I looked, no eggs again.  So, I added a frame of eggs from a nuc to see what they do with those.  I've been taking some of the cells and making nucs to incubate new queens and leaving a few Q cells in the original hive for them to do as they choose.  It does make you wonder and I guess that's why we enjoy this so much :). 

[Michael Bush]

If they are backfilling the brood nest, they are probably going to swarm.  If not, they may just be doing a supersedure.  Basically I figure a strong hive is probably trying to swarm where a weak hive is probably doing a supersedure.

[Brian D. Bray]

Bees are like people in that the hotter it is the more space each individual needs, it helps keep things a little cooler.
Bees bearding can be due to several reasons, 1. heat forces excess nurse bees outside, 2. overpopulated hive is making more room inside so remaining bees can better regulate brood nest temps, 3.  hive population has built up to point of swarming.

Use of a slatted rack will cure bearding in the cases of #1 & 2, making a split might save a swarm in the case of #3 but it's not guarantee.  It is important to keep in mind that beesin the case of supercedure, will kill the queen as early as when they begin making supercedure cells.  Swarms will aften leave a hive as soon as the queen cell is capped so the swarm leaves 8 days before the next queen will hatch.  Those are some of the reasons you do not want to destroy queen cells.  Also important is that the interruption in the brood cycle is going to occur in the case of supercedure or swarming.  T

A hive that has replaced its queen through any method will be found to have little to no brood, what brood is noted is capped and ready to hatch.  The bees might begin to back fill the brood chamber with nectar because without an active queen to produce eggs there is not reason to continue to draw comb (the hive has temporarily stopped expanding) and hence turns to storage activity.  Once the queen is mated and starts laying (up to 50 days) then the bees will begin moving the stores from the brood nest so the queen has space for brood and once the population has built up sufficiently, again, they will resume building comb for stores, 

[Kathyp]

This would be a bad thing wouldn't it? Like a laying worker?

you may have a 2 queen hive.