First attempt at an artificial Swarm...

[Neils]

Well, I had my suspicions that they'd do this to me in the week that the weather changed, especially as I hadn't managed to inspect on saturday or sunday.

I turned up today and immediately noticed that there were a lot of bees sniffing around the equipment stack, the shed and the other empty hives on site. Opening up the hive, the first thing apparent was that they'd completely ignored the frames of foundation that I'd sneaked in last week

Working through, sure enough queen cells and sealed to boot, about 10 in total. Fortunately I'd also spotted eggs and the Queen herself inevitably nestled on the super frame in the brood box for drone culling which also hosted the majority of the queen cells.

Having coaxed her Maj onto a standard national frame I checked it for queen cells, removed any that I found and place it in the middle of the new 14x12 hive surrounded by Foundation.

I then moved the original hive about 4 feet to the left, with the entrance oriented 90 degrees away from the existing hive, stuck the crownboard back on and placed the new 14x12 in the original hive location.

I then replaced the Queen Excluder and the supers back on the 14x12 hive. I left the bees that were in the supers on the super frames.

I next made up a Nuc of 2 drawn frames of stores which I topped up with syrup simply by pouring syrup onto the open comb and 3 frames of brood including a frame with 2 queen cells, one sealed, the other still open. This I placed on top of the 14x12 hive, entrance turned 90 degrees to the main hive and reduced to 1-2 bee size.

The old national hive now consists of 6 drawn frames, 1 mostly pollen and nectar, but with some brood, and 5 frames of foundation. I also left a miller feeder on top with about half a litre of 1:1 syrup as I forgot the spare crownboard I'd taken home to clean up in preparation so couldn't use a rapid feeder instead. :rolleyes:
This has two sealed queen cells, next to each other, on the super frame, rough location marked with a drawing pin.

As I hadn't lost the swarm I'm going to assume that my queen cells are 8 days old on the basis that if they'd been capped for any length of time and given the ok weather (a bit chilly to inspect, but not raining) yesterday that if they were older I'd have lost the swarm. That should mean that if I go next sunday, I should be in a position to try and open the cells myself and let them out, the Nuc is a bit different as it has one sealed cell and a much younger unsealed one at the moment.

The big question is, what did I do wrong, or what did I forget to do?

I'd intended to take some photos for an article I'm planning, but inevitably BOTH batteries were flat so I got none :(

[Hugh]

As I am new to Beekeeping this is a great way of see wether book theory or practice is the right method.

I thought you were to remove all but one Queen cell when artificial swarming and spliting up a hive into new colonies??

I look forward to the next thrilling instalment, with pictures ..... ?

[Neils]

There's a school of thought that says if you remove all but one queencell, the one you've left behind has a dead worker, a dead queen or nothing at all in it. My original intention was to have tried to draw them both out or if I messed up at that point then at least I'd have a second cell as backup. Last year I reduced down to a single cell, but tried to make a nuc as backup then too, and the queen cell in the Nuc basically didn't make it, this time I want the Split AND the Nuc so I'm keeping two cells in each as insurance.

My original intention was to go back on day 15 (sunday) and draw the cells manually but the Mrs has decided we have to go away this weekend so that might not be possible and I might just have to reduce down to a single cell in each and hope for the best.

[Jon]

Hi Nellie. That is pretty much the way I do an artificial swarm, leaving the old queen with the flying bees and supers.
If the colony is one I like, I leave all the queen cells and transfer them to rollers for making up nucs about two days before they are due to hatch.

212


I then replaced the Queen Excluder and the supers back on the 14x12 hive. I left the bees that were in the supers on the super frames.

I have noticed that when you do this the bees tend to move into the super where the comb is already drawn and will be reluctant to draw more than a couple of frames of foundation down below. Bees may be smart - but they are not smart enough to know that a queen excluder lives up to its name so they will polish cells for the queen to lay in up in the super as it sure beats drawing foundation. I try and make sure there are at least 4 frames of drawn foundation in the new brood box but you probably don't have any if you are switching to 14 by 12. You could always use some of the old drawn frames and cull the drone comb which they will make below as part of your varroa control strategy. Watch out that they don't make a sneaky queen cell if the queen runs out of space to lay.


As I hadn't lost the swarm I'm going to assume that my queen cells are 8 days old

Last year at the end of May I found sealed queen cells which hatched 5 days later so they must have been 11 days old. The queen was still present. In my case, I think it was the weather which prevented the swarm. You definitely run some risk of a swarm if you are going to wait until next Sunday with more than 1 cell present.

[Neils]

If the colony is one I like, I leave all the queen cells and transfer them to rollers for making up nucs about two days before they are due to hatch.
That's for next year I think, I'm trying not to run before I can walk at the moment. If I get a successful 3 way split out of it, I'll be very happy. Plus we haven't had the election yet so mountains of Correx for making up temp nucs haven't appeared ;)


Last year at the end of May I found sealed queen cells which hatched 5 days later so they must have been 11 days old.
I'm making that assumption as I checked every frame last sunday for queen cells and there were definitely none, plus I have/had a few that were still unsealed. while it's difficult to be 100% sure about it, I'm reasonably confident I didn't miss any on the last inspection. As they made the majority on the super frame I'm absolutely certain that I didn't miss those last weekend.


I have noticed that when you do this the bees tend to move into the super where the comb is already drawn and will be reluctant to draw more than a couple of frames of foundation down below. Bees may be smart - but they are not smart enough to know that a queen excluder lives up to its name so they will polish cells for the queen to lay in up in the super as it sure beats drawing foundation. I try and make sure there are at least 4 frames of drawn foundation in the new brood box but you probably don't have any if you are switching to 14 by 12. You could always use some of the old drawn frames and cull the drone comb which they will make below as part of your varroa control strategy. Watch out that they don't make a sneaky queen cell if the queen runs out of space to lay.
I had considered putting the 14x12 above the old brood box to get them to draw comb, in the end I feared that giving them that much space might have put them off swarming altogether. To give them any more comb means it has to come out of the existing National or Nuc both of which have 5 frames each. There's been a reasonable flow on here and the bulk of the drawn super frames are full of nectar, I'm hoping they're at least smart enough to figure that out ;)

[Stromnessbees]

I have noticed that when you do this the bees tend to move into the super where the comb is already drawn and will be reluctant to draw more than a couple of frames of foundation down below. Bees may be smart - but they are not smart enough to know that a queen excluder lives up to its name so they will polish cells for the queen to lay in up in the super as it sure beats drawing foundation.... Jon

If there are no drawn combs available would it not be better not to put the super back on in order to force them to draw out the foundation? After all this would resemble a natural swarm even more.

Doris

[Adam]

My personal view is to leave one OPEN queencell in a hive. This means that you know there's a larva in there. I am nervous about 'pulling' queens . (Although I have to admit that I haven't done it)!

There is an alternative way (as always with beekeeping). Remove the queen on her frame of bees to a nuc at the side with stores and foundation/drawn comb as you have it. Add emerging brood if you wish - (from any hive). Shake in some young bees from the donor colony. (Young bees are those that are still on the comb after the first shake over the donor hive). The flying bees will return to the old hive so the queen can't swarm as she has no bees to keep her company, but check for queencells anyway. The original hive will produce a new queen.

The old queen in the nuc will start to lay and it will develop into a decent colony by the autumn as potentially she has an additional 3 - 4 weeks laying compared to a nuc with a virgin inside.

[Jon]

Hi Adam:
I do it that way sometimes as well but if the queen cell fails to hatch or the queen goes awol you can have a very aggressive queenless hive on your hands. I have mine on allotments so that scenario is a risk I don't like to take. I never feel happy until I have a load of extra nucs or mated queens in Apideas so that I can put right any mistakes very quickly by combining or adding a queen.

Re. pulling queens, I caught 8 at the weekend (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/entry.php?50-Queens-galore) and some of them look quite decent. There were another 3 or 4 still running around in the box piping away.


Plus we haven't had the election yet so mountains of Correx
A neighbour who campaigns for one of the parties here has to take down the propaganda on 7th June and he has promised me all I want. He gave me 8 pieces 48" by 30"' last week from the last Euro elections. He claims to have a barn full of the stuff.
I am definitely going to follow up Gavin's suggestion in another thread and make the entrance through the mouth or possibly a double entrance through the eyes for a more sinister effect. It should be easily done if you make sure the folds are in the right place.
I promise to post a utube video.

[gavin]

I promise to post a utube video.

Excellent!! Very much looking forward to it. These candidates who don't meet your criteria for support - they don't have paramilitary connections, do they? Wouldn't like to hear of you getting a knock on the door at 5 in the morning ....

[Jon]

With most of the candidates, electing to make the entrance through the mouth would make it impossible to defend from wasps and other assailants due to the width.
Forget the Beehaus and get your head around the idea of ......wait for it.........THE IRIS ROBINSON HIVE©

[Neils]

The point about allotments is a good one, these are in a similar situation and I just moved the queen onto 14x12 frames so I'd rather chance two queen cells and the possibility of losing a cast swarm than have a lone cell fail and a grumpy hive or two on site. Ultimately because of the weather I didn't get much say in whether I left open cells or not. I left an open and a sealed cell in the Nuc as I figured that gave me time to assess the situation in the nuc and possibly remove that queen cell if all looked well otherwise, all the rest were already sealed. I guess I could have torn the lot down and left them for another couple of days but I felt under the circumstances that this was the best course of action.

[Adam]

I take your point about allottments. My bees are at home but I DID have a large bad tempered hive last year which was so bad that we couldn't leave the house on one particular sunny Sunday after an inspection on Saturday (I was not popular!) I had to wheelbarrow the hive to a field next door. Any yes they were queenless - after an introduced queen swarmed 6 days after introduction. I think this is where Jon, you wrote about wearing socks around your wrists as protection with a bad tempered lot.

[Jon]

I use nitrile gloves and the socks are more to seal the area between glove and sleeve where bees always seem to crawl up. It works really well. I inspected 4 colonies earlier today and didn't get a sting. No sign of any queen cells but I did see a drone or two running around. I am optimistic of getting near the end of May before having to start artificial swarming this year but that could be famous last words. I checked the colony on double brood today and no cells there so that gives me 8 days grace.

[Neils]

Well I hedged my bets in the end. Yesterday I re-inspected and in the National Hive I drew out the queens. Flicking the first one into the grass wasn't the ideal situation, fortunately I managed to scoop her back up and into the hive. The Drawing pins came in doubly useful as I found a lot more queen cells in both colonies, all of which I took down. The Nuc I decided to just leave to it and removed all but my previously selected queen cell and moved them to a new location (they were on top of the QueenRight colony) although I'm not sure they really need bleeding of any more bees.

I guess now I just leave them to it and keep my fingers crossed for a successful mating.

[EmsE]

Well I hedged my bets in the end. Yesterday I re-inspected and in the National Hive I drew out the queens.

How do you draw out the queens? I've not heard of that before. Mind you on the whole issue of swarm control I have stuck to just reading my notes from the classes so as not to get confused....but I'm ready to be confused now.:cool:

[Neils]

Basically you go back the day before the cells are due to emerge and let out the queens. it does rely on you having a pretty good idea just how old the queen cells are though. You can either try and open the end of the cell with your hive tool or given the toughness of the "silk" atthe end of the cell I found it easier to carefully remove the whole cell from the frame and go in from the rear.

Having taken a peek in the nuc which I left, for comparison, with a single queen cell I will say that what it does have going for it is you know for certain that last time you looked there was definitely a virgin queen in there and you've got the option that I wish I'd taken now to use the other queen elsewhere if you want to and assuming they're both alive. I know there's a queen in the national box because I put her there, I'm not 100% convinced that the queen cell in the nuc has emerged which means i'm going to have to disturb it again on the next inspection to make sure.