Swarm Cells

Roborep1 · May 29, 2015, 05:03:22 PM

Seeking advice on this situation. Went into a hive this morning to find swarm cells. At least three were on one frame and I stopped there because I knew I was going to come back tonight or tomorrow. I am sure they are swarm not supercedure. I uncapped one and found young larvae. One I left capped and the third had an egg though I didn't see a ton of jelly.

Hive is heavy with honey and bees and I have plenty of other resources in the yard to do a split or make Nucs.

What should I do and steps should I follow?

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drjeseuss · May 29, 2015, 05:07:44 PM

With spare equipment, you could pull the frame(s) with the cells into a new hive as a split (with other frames/bees to support this). I recently did an artificial swarm with mine, where I left the queen and main hive in place for foragers to return to (the swarm), and removed the brood frames with nurse bees to a new box. The queen and foragers began collecting nectar like mad and laying up space between, while the brood split reared their own queen from the cells on frame and built up quite rapidly. If you have cells on more than one frame, you could even produce multiple smaller splits.

sc-bee · May 29, 2015, 05:37:52 PM

Remember the old queen does not stay with the parent hive. They are looking for a swarm and she would not stay. Leaving here pheromone in the parent colony may still leave swarming tendencies. If cells are capped you could move them to smaller mating nucs or divide a box into smaller sections if you do not have enough resources to do multiple full splits.

OF course always check MB's pages for easy to understand instructions:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm

AR Beekeeper · May 29, 2015, 06:39:16 PM

What you need to do depends on your goals for this year. If you want to increase colonies then make the number of nucs you desire using the queen cells the parent colony has made. If the colony has sealed cells the original queen has probably already swarmed out, unless the weather has prevented her from leaving. You can make 2 or 3 frame nucs, or stronger, making sure each has a frame with a good queen cell on it, and destroy the other cells. If you leave more than one cell there is a danger that even a weak nuc will cast a small swarm with one of the virgin queens produced.

If you do not want to make increase, and the original queen is still in the colony, Demaree the colony. If the queen has already left with a swarm, cut all queen cells but one open cell that has good food in it and a small larva, check in a week and remove any cells other than the one you selected before. That cell will make the colony a new queen and she should emerge in about a week and should be laying in another 10 days, weather permitting.

OldMech · May 29, 2015, 09:20:31 PM

http://www.outyard.net/swarm-prevention.html

Hope that helps!

sc-bee · May 30, 2015, 09:35:17 AM

Quote from: OldMech on May 29, 2015, 09:20:31 PM
http://www.outyard.net/swarm-prevention.html

Hope that helps!

Nice pages mech... gonna mark them.... thanks for the time, in particular on the wood items. No carpenter here at all but see a couple things I think I can handle.

rookie2531 · May 30, 2015, 11:08:36 AM

Rep, Is the original queen still there? Probably already gone. If not, you should take her out into new hive/nuc box. Swarm cells are the best made queens, so consider keeping them.

richter1978 · May 30, 2015, 08:38:14 PM

I agree with Rookie. I have read many times that if there are capped cells the queen is already gone, however in my limited experience about 50% of the time the original queen is still there (luck on my side I guess) so its worth looking for her and making a split or artificial swarm using her.

biggraham610 · May 31, 2015, 11:23:47 PM

Yep, Im with rookie too, simulate swarm by removing queen to a split/nuc and let the packed box raise you a fatty. G

Roborep1 · June 03, 2015, 04:34:49 PM

Let me say how grateful I am to the info. Great forum you have here. I had a feeling the queen was in there because I had seen eggs in queen cups and on frames. I found her when I went back in. I did not use the frame she was on bc it had queen cells. I pinched her off and isolated her in a marking tube while I dug through the hive. I had two capped swarm cells and two with eggs. I put her into a NUC with frame of brood, pollen, honey, and two open. Shook some bees in and called it a day. I left all the swarm cells in the original hive.

On another note I have this 3 year old northern winter carni queen who is a laying machine. I am so proud of her I went to snap a picture and as I am trying to snap I lose her in the long grass at my feet. 20 min later I find a circle of bees around her and return her back to hove without said picture. What a dummy mistake.

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OldMech · June 03, 2015, 05:52:09 PM

heheh.. it happens.. and its not so much a dummy mistake until your scraping the queen off the bottom of your boot, THEN its a mistake... You found her, returned her, all is well!

Roborep1 · June 10, 2015, 12:15:17 PM

UPDATE

Some point about a week ago I moved the old queen into a Nuc as indicated in my post above. I left the swarm cells behind. No cells were moved with the old queen.

This was about a week to ten days ago...forget exactly. Need to start keeping records.

Old hive still has swarm cells. A few cells were broken with workers cleaning them. Some still capped. I didn't find a queen though I didn't look hard. I put them back together and decided to leave them be.

When I went into Nuc the queen is there laying. They are brining in nectar but I found this

I'm thinking maybe I put too many bees in there. There is at least two medium frames full of capped worker brood both sides. I shook a good deal of bees as well. What do I do with this Nuc?

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Roborep1 · June 10, 2015, 12:20:36 PM

While I've only been doing this a few years I've had Carni's which I was told were swarm happy and never had trouble. Now I get Italians and they are trying to swarm like crazy. Besides the above I also have a third hive that today I found one queen cup with egg no jelly on bottom of frame like swarm cell. There is only one at this point and the queen is still there. What should I do with this hive we will call "third hive"?

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rookie2531 · June 10, 2015, 04:22:50 PM

If you want to keep her, move her again. But if you are out of comb, say goodbye.

Roborep1 · June 10, 2015, 05:38:20 PM

Rook- I've got comb and spare Nucs. So move her and split leaving that queen cell behind?

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rookie2531 · June 10, 2015, 05:43:44 PM

I would. And if you have enough bees for both. Might shake some from original hive, again. Good luck and if it don't pan out, what have you lost? Just combine and look forward.

OldMech · June 10, 2015, 06:44:49 PM

The original queen is typically denied the promised land.. Once they have swarmed, and relocated, the old queen is usually superseded.. I cant say thats what is happening, that cell looks like its at the bottom of the frame.... is that a medium frame in a deep hive box?

Roborep1 · June 11, 2015, 03:13:34 PM

Quote from: OldMech on June 10, 2015, 06:44:49 PM
The original queen is typically denied the promised land.. Once they have swarmed, and relocated, the old queen is usually superseded.. I cant say thats what is happening, that cell looks like its at the bottom of the frame.... is that a medium frame in a deep hive box?

It is.

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Roborep1 · June 14, 2015, 09:22:05 PM

They broke the cell down. I found no virgin queen at a 7 pm inspection, I did however find the original. All seems well with this Nuc.

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biggraham610 · June 14, 2015, 09:53:59 PM

Good Deal. G