Virgin queens and swarms

L Daxon · April 18, 2015, 11:12:43 PM

If a primary swarm leaves a hive with the old queen and a secondary swarm leaves the same hive a week or so later, will the secondary swarm leave with a virgin queen? Or maybe a couple virgin queens? The swarm queen cells have barely had time to hatch so the new queen(s) mostly likely didn't get mated before they took off. Is my thinking correct here?

chux · April 20, 2015, 11:59:42 AM

You are correct. The secondary swarm is probably the result or a virgin queen who was unable to kill her competition, but was not killed in the fight. She fled, and a number of bees went with her, accepting her as their queen. And yes, there could be more than one virgin queen in the swarm. I have seen it.

iddee · April 20, 2015, 12:08:32 PM

It is also said that when a virgin queen leaves the hive with a swarm, she isn't a virgin when they arrive at their home. I have no reference to that, since it dates back to before the internet.

don2 · April 20, 2015, 12:50:48 PM

I have never seen it in writing that a virgin queen would leave a swarm to mate. Could be I missed that chapter. d2

Kathyp · April 20, 2015, 01:12:49 PM

The swarms I have picked up with virgins also seem to have more than their fair share of drones. just an observation......

chux · April 20, 2015, 01:18:26 PM

Most swarms don't seem to hang around more than a day as the scouts are looking for a home. Seems like I have been told that new queens go on several mating flights over the course of a few days. I would be surprised if a virgin had time to go off and mate before arriving at the new home. I would think there is too much chance that the swarm would want to leave while she is gone to mate. Then again, the bees constantly surprise me.

BeeMaster2 · April 20, 2015, 01:27:09 PM

Quite often a secondary swarm will leave the hive with more than one virgin queen. Ask Schawee, I think he had 8 or more on one swarm. They remain virgins until the hive is located and then the queens fight it out. The lone survivor then leaves the hive and mates.
The bees keep the queens in their cells until they are ready to swarm. They will then release one or more of them. If they are done swarming they will then allow the queen to fight it out.
If your hive swarmed, listen to hear for piping queen. If you hear them, they are not done swarming.
Jim

iddee · April 20, 2015, 08:14:03 PM

The last I heard, the queen FLEW to the new location. I'm not saying she does all her partying in that one flight, but I have read she will party along as the swarm is traveling.

rdy-b · April 21, 2015, 03:22:26 AM

**The bees keep the queens in their cells until they are ready to swarm. They will then release one or more of them. If they are done swarming they will then allow the queen to fight it out. **

IS that the way of it--please rethink what you have posted--RDY-B

BeeMaster2 · April 21, 2015, 12:52:53 PM

RDY,
I just got done dealing with my observation hive doing just that. They were in swarm mode, noisy and a large ball of bees, football size, hanging outside of the hive. I did a split and moved the queen to a nuc. about 10 days later this hive swarmed and it left the area. I could hear queens piping at this point. A week later it swarmed again and it landed in one of my traps, my wife watched it swarm. I could still hear 3 distinct queens piping. That night my wife and I opened the observation hive to reduce it down to one queen. I had 4 queen cages available. Once it was open and the bees were disturbed enough that they stopped tending the queen cells, while I was removing queen cells as fast as I could with out damaging them, the queens were getting out of their cells on the table and in the hive. I ended up with 10 queens. I marked every one. I put one marked queen back in the hive after taking out all but 2 frames out, to do a through search for any remaining queens. Late that night I saw an unmarked queen in the hive and never found the marked queen. About 5 days later she started laying. 2 weeks later, so many bees were dieing off that this hive started failing and within a couple of days it was dead.
Jim

rdy-b · April 23, 2015, 04:35:01 AM

*The bees keep the queens in their cells until they are ready to swarm. They will then release one or more of them. If they are done swarming they will then allow the queen to fight it out. **

my man your heart is in the right place---but this is simpley not how things work in the hive- the bees dont keep queens in there cells intil they need them to swarm--its quite backwards from your therey its the productin of cells
wheather emergangy --or superceduer of the queen-that is timed to a fined tuned orchastrea-the hives needs-

the post about your observation hive made me think i should get my obseratin hive up and running
but not today --cary on RDY-B

BeeMaster2 · April 24, 2015, 12:57:58 AM

If you say so.
Not what I experienced and saw.
Jim

richter1978 · April 24, 2015, 07:41:48 AM

Taken from the ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture 41st edition pg. 687.

"Queen piping also causes the workers to prevent the emergence of queens during swarming. Piping communicates the number and status of queens and influences queen emergence." -Andy

iddee · April 24, 2015, 08:59:55 AM

If the queens are held in their cells, what do they eat? It is known all the food is gone on day 16, or before.

OldMech · April 24, 2015, 09:44:56 AM

The bees feed them.. I have pulled a frame with queen cells on it, to suddenly have 5 queens emerge at the same moment.. my only explanation was that they had been "held" in their cells.. the chance 5 queens opened their cappings in the same instant would be a coincidence of high magnitude.
I have also watched a documentary or two showing queens being "held" in their cells for a short time...

iddee · April 24, 2015, 12:14:56 PM

Have you ever found capped queen cells with "feeder holes" in the capping?

don2 · April 24, 2015, 12:52:24 PM

sounds like where another queen got to it and did her job. d2

OldMech · April 24, 2015, 02:40:26 PM

Quote from: iddee on April 24, 2015, 12:14:56 PM
Have you ever found capped queen cells with "feeder holes" in the capping?

Not yet, but I will pay more attention now that I know that is a possibility. I'd like to get some pics of that.

tjc1 · April 24, 2015, 06:44:44 PM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 21, 2015, 12:52:53 PM
RDY,
I just got done dealing with my observation hive doing just that. They were in swarm mode, noisy and a large ball of bees, football size, hanging outside of the hive. I did a split and moved the queen to a nuc. about 10 days later this hive swarmed and it left the area. I could hear queens piping at this point. A week later it swarmed again and it landed in one of my traps, my wife watched it swarm. I could still hear 3 distinct queens piping. That night my wife and I opened the observation hive to reduce it down to one queen. I had 4 queen cages available. Once it was open and the bees were disturbed enough that they stopped tending the queen cells, while I was removing queen cells as fast as I could with out damaging them, the queens were getting out of their cells on the table and in the hive. I ended up with 10 queens. I marked every one. I put one marked queen back in the hive after taking out all but 2 frames out, to do a through search for any remaining queens. Late that night I saw an unmarked queen in the hive and never found the marked queen. About 5 days later she started laying. 2 weeks later, so many bees were dieing off that this hive started failing and within a couple of days it was dead.
Jim

Wow - that's quite an event to have seen! I had the same experience of checking on a frame of swarm cells to have them all start hopping out at the same time. I've also read somewhere about the bees holding the queens in the cells until they are ready for whatever.

BeeMaster2 · April 24, 2015, 11:04:00 PM

Keeping them in the cells keeps them from killing each other.
Jim