Questions about swarming...

farmerjohn · March 17, 2010, 10:04:16 AM

I live in lower alabama. The temperature was about 70º and slightly breezy. I have two hives. One of my hives yesterday at about the noon hour attempted to swarm or something along those lines. My Dad called me to tell me that there thousands and thousands of bees clustering on the outside of the hive. So I headed out to the bees and by the time I arrived there were not the number of bees on the outside of the hive(about half or so). I opened up the hive and still found both hive bodies to be full of bees! While looking through the top hive body I heard a weird high pitched intermittent buzzing. As I went from frame to frame looking around, I found the queen and it was making the weird noises. I watched her move around a couple inches or so, hunker down to the comb, make the noise then move off and make the noise.

It seems like the hive sent off a small swarm, because there were still so many bees in the hive.

Does a queen do the piping to initiate a swarm or to wage war on new queens???

I will be closely monitoring the hive, weather permitting. Today its overcast and raining.

Any info/help would be greatly appreciated

acbs · March 17, 2010, 11:12:53 AM

farmerjohn,

Check out this video I captured a couple of years ago of a piping queen in a small hive after they had swarmed. http://www.youtube.com/user/acbees#p/a/f/0/VBlI1sgczVY

Hives don't necessarily look empty after they've swarmed. Your hive has swarmed and you've been fortunate to see a piping queen firsthand. If a queen is piping it is because there are more queens, or about to be more queens, hatching in the hive. I had heard a piping queen in the hive in the video the day before and left it alone. The next day they swarmed and there were still more queens in the hive. At the time I had over 20 hives, so just to see what would happen, I let nature take its course. It was early enough in the season, the hive built up well and made it through the winter and so did the swarm.
You'll probably get many opinions on what to do in your situation concerning saving your hive. Once they're that involved in swarming it's hard to stop. You could just leave it alone. It's still early, it won't be what it was, but it will more than likely build back up. There's no guarantee, but swarm traps might be an idea.
I found another hive of ours in a similar situation a little later. I broke it down, left it with a couple of queen cells, divided the rest into 3-4 boxes with virgins or cells and moved them to another yard. The reduction in population in each box minimized the swarming tendency, then I just let them sort it out. After a while if a box had made a queen then great, I had extra queen. If they didn't succeed with making another queen I just recombined them. Then again we have enough hives I can still get a honey harvest and afford to play with a few. Also, we're in central Illinois and I'm not that familiar with the weather in lower Alabama. Hopefully someone else will have a better suggestion for the spot you're in.
Arvin

JP · March 18, 2010, 12:45:38 AM

What I would do is move that hive, go through it, take a few frames of brood with eggs/young larvae or a ripe queen cell if present, probaly will be and place those in another set up of your choice, nuc, medium whatever and place it at the old location along with food.

Returning bees will go to the new set up and use one of the virgins or make another one.

The hive that swarmed may have multiple queen cells you could use to make even more hives with.

Piping queens pip to locate other virgins so they can kill them, "Insect politics" at its finest!

...JP

farmerjohn · March 20, 2010, 03:07:08 AM

Thanks to everyone who has answered my questions. That hive still seems to want to swarm. Today at 10 am the hive sent out thousands more bees that ended up collecting on the front of the hive, then finally going back in. So I am wondering if it could hurt to look through the hive to see whats left and what else if anything is going on...

RayMarler · March 20, 2010, 03:27:03 AM

I would think it would be kind of hard to swarm if you did not have any field bees. I would take a frame of eggs from another hive if you have one (your swarm? hive won't have any eggs now.) with a frame of honey and leave it in the old location, with the rest frames of foundation. Move the rest of the hive a few feet at least, away, and facing a different direction and away from the old location. If you catch it in time, it may defeat the swarm from issuing and give you another hive.

bailey · March 20, 2010, 10:15:13 PM

put a swarm trap with old brood comb in it out in your yard. i catch alot of swarms like that.
just in case.
bailey

Michael Bush · March 20, 2010, 10:47:38 PM

Bees make a kind of warbling hum before they swarm... perhaps that's what you're hearing.

doak · March 20, 2010, 10:54:51 PM

Piping Queens is a sound to behold. :)doak

farmerjohn · March 20, 2010, 11:19:11 PM

Well I inspected all 20 frames of the hive bodies. I didn't find any eggs or larva, just capped brood spread out through the frames. There is curing honey and pollen everywhere. I did find 6 empty swarm cells which I removed. I did find two swarm cells that were capped. Queens might be alive, dunno at this time. I removed 5 frames from the top hive body, and installed 5 frames of foundation, checkerboard style. I am hoping the queens are alive and will hatch and stick around. The hive still has both boxes full of bees. I am hoping the checkerboarding will give the bees something to do instead of hanging out in front of the hive.

BTW, on a nearby sapling I found signs of a recent swarm. The sapling is about 3 feet tall, and now has a very serious lean to it. Below the tree there are thousands of dead bees.

JP · March 21, 2010, 08:17:08 AM

Quote from: farmerjohn on March 20, 2010, 11:19:11 PM
Well I inspected all 20 frames of the hive bodies. I didn't find any eggs or larva, just capped brood spread out through the frames. There is curing honey and pollen everywhere. I did find 6 empty swarm cells which I removed. I did find two swarm cells that were capped. Queens might be alive, dunno at this time. I removed 5 frames from the top hive body, and installed 5 frames of foundation, checkerboard style. I am hoping the queens are alive and will hatch and stick around. The hive still has both boxes full of bees. I am hoping the checkerboarding will give the bees something to do instead of hanging out in front of the hive.

BTW, on a nearby sapling I found signs of a recent swarm. The sapling is about 3 feet tall, and now has a very serious lean to it. Below the tree there are thousands of dead bees.

Sounds like someone sprayed that swarm with all the dead bees.

...JP