Invariably happens. I suppose if the two cells are almost joined you could eliminate one by poking a pin in it. bee colonies can throw casts to the point of oblivion leaving next to nothing left. A strong colony can be left as a couple of frames of bees. I used to leave two cells and I often lost a cast swarm so I stopped. Check out the people who are giving advice. many of those who freely advise do no kind of swarm control at all. All they do is let their bees swarm and then hope to recapture the swarms. ie, 99% of the 'experienced' 'senior' beekeepers.
Just had a wee cast swarm there ***blushes***. Will go and try and catch them now. ***hangs head in shame*** UPDATE: She went back inside the origianl hive. I think?
Don't be cross with me Jon, but I left the two queen cells in the colony left after the real swarm. They were such a small colony and the two cells were nearly attached at the top. I felt that I really did not have the skill to kill one without damaging the other. - Tonight we went out to listen to the hives as we do most nice evenings (a strange behaviour; I know) and we heard tooting from this hive. Someone has emerged, will there be a fight tonight?
Just remove the apistan strips. If you have a colony with a virgin queen the main thing is to avoid tinkering with it between 1.00 pm and 5.00 pm as that is when virgin queens fly. If you have a colony open as a queen is returning she may well get disorientated and fail to reenter the hive. The other thing is, if you leave two queen cells you will almost certainly lose another cast swarm. Leave one cell and should it fail to hatch, reunite the colony with another or cadge a queen cell from someone. I had two cadged from me earlier this evening so it is not an unusual occurrence.
Grelder the witch lives! I went out to my collected swarm hive today and discovered one drawn comb filled with eggs and about four other frames in the process of being built. At home, I looked into the hive left behind after the swarm and found sealed and unsealed queen cells. I broke down all of them apart from two. Two! I really could not find an isolated queen cell as they appeared to have been formed in clusters, and this made it difficult for me (the mere novice) to break down and leave one without it being damaged. This weighed with the fact that this hive was the result of an assisted swarm then a real swarm I reckoned the chances of them throwing a cast was slim due to the low population. So, I am hoping it will be a queen death-match instead. The original brood frames with a queen cell from the original artificial swarm (not the real one) are sitting untouched. I calculate that the new queen should be stretching her wings and about to take her nuptial flight any day now. I have the impression from reading different sources that I should completely leave her alone but I have one small problem……two small problems actually; two strips of Apistan (after a heavy infection http://thisteacherslife.wordpress.co...ctor-of-hives/) have reached the end of their treatment period and need to be removed NOW! What do I do?
You would need to give it a minimum of 6 days from the date of the swarm to be sure they will make no further queen cells other than the one you have chosen to leave. Wednesday will be too soon as the eggs she laid on Sunday morning will be hatching on Wednesday and will be perfect age to make emergency queen cells - ie larvae a few hours old. Emergency queen cells are made from larvae rather than eggs.
Yep, it was a swarm from the queen right part of the AS split. The split was carried out on Sunday 19th. I went into the queen right part of the split on Thursday the 23rd and saw no queen cells on the brood frame I left in it and the stores frame I left was cleaned out and full of eggs less than 24 hours old. The proper swarm then happened yesterday 26th. I need to now go into the hive left behind after the swarm and check out what is going on in there although I may not be able to do this until Wednesday. I suspect it will be nuc sized if anything. I have made a wee dummy board with an insulated wall so I have something to try and make a ‘nuc’ with. Will leaving this until Wednesday 29th be enough time to go in and break down all but one queen cell?
That was a fair sized swarm. was that the old queen, ie the queenright part of your artificial swarm? What was left in the hive, any (many) bees or brood. If the colony is determined to swarm they will quickly make queen cells again, sometimes from a 2 day old larva which means thay can have a cell capped on the third day.
I went into the moved hive with most of the brood frames when I got home from school. There was only one closed queen cell and my suspicions about missing one were incorrect. There were a couple of emergency cell started charged with jelly so I broke them down and left the one beautiful classic queen cell. I went over to the ‘swarmed’ hive with the mind that I would get a nice queen from Jon (the most prolific and gentle one he had, of course). I stood at the hive and wondered what point I had looking in as there was no purpose to my inspection. I know that I should not look out of curiosity but I decided to dive in anyway. I did not want to mess about too much so I just went for the one frame of brood I put in. About a third of the sealed brood had hatched since Sunday and there were larvae in nearly all stages. The rest was filled with nectar and pollen. One cell caught my eye and I thought I saw what looked like an egg. It was more than likely the light catching a puddle of nectar. It got my curiosity going enough to feel the need to look at the one frame of stores I slipped into the ‘swarm’. They had completely emptied it and filled it with these…… ….AAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me…………. LOL I thought there were still a lot of bees! I leaving it all alone for a few weeks now. At least I can relax and not worry about the 7 day inspections.
Hi Nematode If you are sure there is no queen and you want to recombine, just put the two stacks together with a sheet of newspaper in between but the key thing here is to leave just a single queen cell or you will lose more casts. If something goes horribly wrong and you need a queen or a queen cell just PM me as I am running a bee breeding group through Belfast BKA. I am hatching about 20 queens a week at the moment. We have a group going with the aim of improving the quality of our bees, based on using selected native bees. If you check through my recent blog posts there is a fair bit of rigmarole about it. If you want to test for queenlessness the usual procedure is to put in a frame with eggs and young larvae on it. if there is no queen present they will draw out queen cells. if you have queen cells in both parts of the split I would be fairly sure your bees have already swarmed. Actually in your situation a lot of people would leave the split, each one with a single queen cell. If one queen mates and the other fails, you recombine at this point. It helps to have the two colonies close together though. And Saturday was definitely warm enough for a swarm to have come off in between the showers. It was quite nice early afternoon.
Yes, the queen cells were capped. I have been inspecting every 7 days and on Saturday I was very sick and posponed until Sunday. On Saturday, while I was feeling very sorry for myself, my wife came in from wandering around in the garden saying how there were a lot of bees around the front of the hive and she said that she had never seen so many at the front. A tiny fragment of my mind thought, "that's interesting" while the rest of me thought, "I think I'm going to be sick again". So, yes..... One of the most common phrases in beekeeping is 'I can't find the queen and there are sealed queencells but they definitely didn't swarm as the box is still full of bees' If I had a fiver off my father every time I have heard him say that - I would have a big bag full of fivers. ....that's beginning to sound very like me. What now? When do I recombine? Presumably I need to clear the super first?
One man's nematode is another man's potato cyst eelworm! Did you see any capped queen cells. if so, you queen has probably already left with a swarm. I see one part of your split has supers on and may well have far too much space. You need to estimate how many bees you have and how much space they need. If there is no queen, you could recombine via newspaper to keep a strong colony. If you have lost a swarm, what you have now is probably a couple of nucs but housed in full sized brood boxes. One of the most common phrases in beekeeping is 'I can't find the queen and there are sealed queencells but they definitely didn't swarm as the box is still full of bees' If I had a fiver off my father every time I have heard him say that - I would have a big bag full of fivers. The second most common phrase in beekeeping is uttered about 3-4 weeks after losing the swarm mentioned above. Help my bees are queenless. There is no brood at all. Has anyone got a spare queen! There is usually a 10-15 day old virgin in the colony at this point. Whatever option you take you need to remove all queen cells bar one of you will lose more cast swarms. A guy in my bka who has two colonies lost the two prime swarms and about 7 additional casts in April. You couldn't walk down Cyprus avenue without collecting a swarm off a lampost. PS. The woodwork look good. Trumps my plastic boxes.
I don't understand, nematodes help me in my fight against slugs. I have a question; what if the queen did actually leave and this was the reason I could not find her. I will check to see in the 'swarmed' hive in a couple of more days (the AS was carried out on Sunday). What do I do if there is no laying?
I did wonder about that user name! I can't imagine an Irishman actually celebrating one of the potato's gretaest foes .....
Hi nematode. I suspect your queen is likely to destroy the genitalia of up to 15 suitors rather than a single beau. After an artificial swarm you need to check the part with the queen cells 6 days later and remove all but one. If not, you are likely to lose a cast swarm - or several. There will be 1000 bees hatching every day and a few days after the artificial swarm you will have plenty of flying bees working through. Don't believe that stuff about the first queen emerging pulling down the remaining cells. If you place the half without the queen immediately on one side of the queen right colony you can move it to the other side a week later to bleed off the flying bees into the hive with the queen but you look to have several yards between the two so not really practical. Watch out for Gavin with a user name like nematode. He likes his spuds.
One cell left in the split? More than that and you risk a cast. Try (especially as you have now split them) using as little smoke as you can get away with. With less disturbance the queen may still be behaving in her usual way and not running around. The other advantage is that she will be in a more predictable place in the hive, usually on the same frame as eggs.
Did I find the queen? To be honest I did not look for fear of disturbing them too much. I thought I would leave it for a few days and see if she is laying. Finding her is often futile and frustrating as she seems to run about on the mesh floor during inspections. I have caught sight of her doing this a couple of times and only twice spotted her on a frame. I simply split the two brood boxes (that had a queen excluder between them) when I got home and am now treating them in the usual artificial swarm manner.
What a cracking first blog! That method of artificial swarming and queen finding came up during our meeting on queen raising on Saturday, in D's sitting room while we waited for the weather to brighten up a bit. Now that today is here, did you find the queen?
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