Please help

[beejazz]

Hi, my first post, usually a lurker, and can't connect to the BKF for some reason and I need some advice? My A/S, Q part, is wanting to swarm again, 3/4 nearly capped Q cells. I performed the A/S, Pagden, 10 days ago, 4 days later they tried it again, put the Q back in, am feeding 1:1, they have drawn some comb, there are plenty of eggs, and some larvae, and I think the Q is still there, although she won't be soon! Why are the bees wanting to swarm, when the A/S is supposed to stop that?! Is it because they think there is not enough space, ie the bees can't keep up with drawing enough comb for the Q to lay in? What should I do, take out the Q cells? Thanks,

[Jon]

What way did you do the artificial swarm - queen with the flyers on the original site?
First step, make sure the queen is clipped.

[beejazz]

Jon, I still feel unsure about Q clipping, anyway she isn't, the artificial swarm is the Q with flyers on original site, the brood part to one side and a quarter turned. I have left one cell in the brood part.
Re: clipping the Q, if I went and clipped her now, that still wouldn't give me the reason why they want to swarm, and they would still attempt to swarm and i may still lose her, ie not find her on the ground, (there are a lot of borage plants in front of the hive)! I suppose I would still have the bees though.

[Jon]

Check the brood part a few days after you did the split and remove the additional emergency cells they will have made.
If you left an open cell rather than a sealed one the best time to do this is 6 days after the split as the queen will not have emerged yet.

Get someone to clip your queen for you.
Sometimes when they decide to swarm there is no stopping them especially if you have bees with a strong tendency to swarm in the first place.
removing cells is unlikely to stop the swarming urge.
Are you sure it is swarming rather than supersedure?

[gavin]

I think that you are doing everything right so far. The queen-right part does sometimes (a lot last year for me) try to make more queen cells. If you don't have empty comb to include with the old queen but need to use foundation that may add to the risk - also the turning of the brood-only split may encourage more workers back to the old queen and add to the congestion. Add to that there are some swarmy stocks around and your experience isn't unusual.

The colony would usually settle down after a week or two of cutting out queen cells (they should be easy to find on just the frame you put in) and then get on with the job of filling their box. If not - are they trying to supersede?

[Mellifera Crofter]

Did you add the queen on a comb of unsealed brood? A really good beekeeper advised me against doing this. He thinks that a colony that has swarmed do not expect to find brood in their new hive. If they do, then they are more likely to want to swarm again.
Kitta

[beejazz]

Hi Mellifera Crofter, yes I believe I did, And it was on that frame the bees had made more swarm cells. I destroyed the cells, shook off the bees and put it back into the brood part. Also put in a drawn comb into the A/S part.
Gavin, whereabouts are supercedure cells usually found in a brood and a half? Is it possible they are hanging off the bottom of the super frames and 'look' like swarm cells, but the bees have made them there because they think it is in the middle of their brood nest, so really supercedure? Q is from a cast about this time last year, and was doing fine until all this palaver!

[gavin]

I only have a little experience with brood and a half but I suppose they could be at the junction of the boxes. Usually one or two cells only. At this time of year it would be safer to do an AS anyway.

Depriving the queen-right part of all open brood and eggs would set back any queen cell preparations for perhaps 4 days and give you a few beyond that before swarming to safely take you past a week. If you do that I'd be tempted to shake in some young bees (off a couple of frames from the brood part of the split but frames without the queen cell you are keeping) so that the split is in a better state to raise brood.

[Bumble]

I haven't used brood and a half, and I haven't yet tried using only 'medium' boxes which are my supers. (I use lang jumbos), but I plan to this year if it ever gets warm enough for me to try a bailey comb change onto smaller frames.

I'veunderstood that, if I use two boxes for brood, a quick way of inspecting for swarm cells is to tilt the upper box and check the bottom bars. Any swarm cells in a well-behaved (and literate) colony should build them there, with supersedure cells to the middle of the comb where they are protected.

[Dark Bee]

You display perfect understanding Bumble. It is vital for success that one has literate and well read bees. The latter accomplishment is frequently overlooked and leads to endless bewilderment on the part of the beekeeper and to the bees not knowing how to behave. One could find swarm cells almost anywhere and not where they are supposed to be. I shall shortly be starting a campaign for apian literacy - it is I fea,r badly needed.