Swarming impulse

[Mellifera Crofter]

Some of my hives are still trying to swarm. I've been removing the queen cells, partly because I've run out of hives, and partly because I think it's too late for them to be swarming now and getting another queen mated - but was that the right thing to do?

I'm worried that they might have started to put the queen on a diet to prepare for swarming, and that she has slowed down on her egg laying as a consequence. Should I rather have played along and created an artificial swarm, remove the queen cells from the one half, and then reunite the two halves later?

Kitta

[GRIZZLY]

I would have artificially swarmed with a proper snelgrove board on top of the supers.This has top and bottom hinged doors allowing the filtering off of the emergimg brood from the top box.This restores the population in the bottom box.Reduce the Q cells in the top box to one and see if the new Q will mate-there should still be plenty of viable drones about.You can then overwinter the new colony in a neuc.Useful as a standby if you lose one of your main colonies next year.

[chris]

I'm worried that they might have started to put the queen on a diet to prepare for swarming, and that she has slowed down on her egg laying as a consequence.
Kitta

Kitta,just one little question as it's a strange year: are the bees still storing nectar/honey in the super, or have they started backfilling the brood box already?

[Mellifera Crofter]

Thanks, Grizzly and Chris.

The two hives with the queen cells that I've destroyed on my last visit are a mother and daughter pair from an AS earlier this summer. The mother hive's brood box is fairly packed with brood, Chris, so I think they're still storing nectar in the supers. I'm not sure about the daughter's hive because she inherited a brood-and-a-half hive and most of the brood is in the super (which is something else I need to sort out).

My hives have doubled this summer - I wasn't prepared for that! I'll make sure I have two swarm boards and two brood boxes for my next visit, Grizzly, but I hope they've given up the idea of swarming.

Thanks for the help,
Kitta

[Adam]

It is getting late I agree. I would remove queencells once, ensure they have space (add an empty super above if they need it) and see how they go. I might give it a try a second time. However, as you mention, if the queen has stopped laying then she will probably go. Option if you are short of equipment - assuming you have a nuc - is to remove the queen on her frame, add 2 frames of brood and bees, some more bees and stores so she's safe and will survive the winter. [If you don't want to deplete one colony too much, you could take brood (no bees) from another colony/colonies.] Then let the swarming colony make a queen.

If it's supercedure they want; maybe clip the queen and let them get on with it.

You could get some more hives?

[Mellifera Crofter]

Thanks Adam. I've removed the queen cells once, so I'd better deal with the colonies if they still insist on making swarm cells a second time. I'll be prepared with hives on my next inspection. Apart from not having had hives, I also thought, "You've already swarmed, now stay put!" - but I don't think they agree with me.
Kitta

[gavin]

Are you sure that it is swarming and not supersedure, Kitta?

[BEEMAN76]

All my bees are at the heather at the moment and there are lots of them superseding at this time every year!

[Mellifera Crofter]

Are you sure that it is swarming and not supersedure, Kitta?


All my bees are at the heather at the moment and there are lots of them superseding at this time every year!

I've just been to the hives and they're ok now. Only one queen cup, and that was empty. I don't think they were thinking of supersedure, Gavin. Both queens are doing well, as far as I can see. I have another hive that might have been supersedure cells - but in that case I can see that the hive has problems. I think the queen is a drone layer, and that their queen cells will therefore have drones in them. I've added a queen cell from another hive a couple of days ago and they're still guarding it.

Do you just leave those hives to replace their queen, Beeman?

[Trog]

We have both supersedure and swarming going on here!

[Neils]

Certainly got supersedure going on, also still have queens laying up drone cells.

[Jon]

Mine are still packed with drones although there is not as much drone brood as before. Some of the drone comb is being backfilled with nectar.
3 of mine swarmed with clipped queens when I was away.
I found a little cluster on the side of the garden shed and one of the queens was in it.
She had got about 20 feet from the hive.
This one had no open queen cells so no loss of bees but the other two had open queen cells and must have swarmed about a week earlier.
One of these seems a bit light of bees so I likely lost a swarm with a virgin queen a week after the clipped queen swarmed.

[Adam]

For my girls, the swarming impulse seems to have receded; lots of drones around but some super frames under which drone comb has been cut out have had the space filled by worker cells; a good indication they won't swarm. No signs of supercedure yet although one introduced queen is not being taken to, with a couple of queencells being started, not much brood being laid and a sealed emergency cell on one frame at the last inspection (Not seen that before). I'll unite with the hive next-door soon.