First attempt at an artificial Swarm...

[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.

[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.