Made a hash of it

[snimmo243]

No not that kind of hash! man!
The colony that swarmed two weeks ago hasn't been taking down syrup very well compared to the other splits we made. At the time we selected a sealed queen cell (I know should have been open) and destroyed the rest and basically treat it as you would in an artificial swarm. So today I decided to have a look (if my maths is right the sealed cell should have hatched last sat/sun and queen maybe out yesterday/today on orientation flights) I found sealed brood (from old queen) one big sealed queen cell and five smaller ones as well as the original queen cell which had clearly hatched. My brain went into overdrive trying to work out what was going on and I think this sent my brain into shock :-). There was no sign of a queen (the fact she may have been out on a mating flight didn't enter my head) so I assumed she had left in a cast. So now I'm thinking tear down the small cells and leave the big one. As I took the small cells out they all had wagging tails and basically hatched in my hand. So I had a handful of queens and one found her way into the hive! :-o At this point I decided to close the hive and let nature take its course.

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[Jon]

A colony can continue to make queen cells for 5 or 6 days after the old queen has swarmed.
If you leave one cell you need to mark its position and 5 days later open the hive and remove all the other cells you find.

[snimmo243]

A colony can continue to make queen cells for 5 or 6 days after the old queen has swarmed.
If you leave one cell you need to mark its position and 5 days later open the hive and remove all the other cells you find.

School boy error! Although maybe I've invented a new method of Queen rearing, I think I will call it the B-eejit system

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[snimmo243]

A colony can continue to make queen cells for 5 or 6 days after the old queen has swarmed.
If you leave one cell you need to mark its position and 5 days later open the hive and remove all the other cells you find.

School boy error! Although maybe I've invented a new method of Queen rearing, I think I will call it the B-eejit system

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[crabbitdave]

I thought you had checked them 5 days after you split them mate, its not really a disaster, go for the laid back approach, your bees are healthy well fed and well behaved what's the problem lol


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[snimmo243]

Having the queens hatch in your hand is quite cool

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