4 hives of pure confusion!

[SunnyRaes]

Sorry, this is a long one for a first post! The fact its so long explains why we are struggling to figure this out, as it is so complicated, happened so quickly and is apparently not what training and books tell you to expect!

Firstly, I should preface this by saying that I am not the beekeeper in the family. Until 2 weeks ago (the good old days!) I had absolutely nothing to do with the bees, so I am coming from a position of COMPLETE ignorance + a little light reading. So please excuse me if I ask bone questions or say silly things! It will also allow me to cover some of the apparent shortcomings in my wifes training (2 x year 1 beginner courses with 2 difference BKA) This is her third year of learning, having got our first neuc in May last year.

We had 2 hives 2 weeks ago, this week we have 4 and lots of confusion! I'll run through each hive in the order things happened.

Hive 2

2 weeks ago, my wife discovered 2 sealed and 5 nearly sealed queen cells in, so the following day carried out a (probably bodged given our space restrictions) shook swarm with my "expert" assistance (holding things).

We moved the hive with brood, 2 queen cells (1 sealed and one unsealed - a mistake we think) and non flying bees 2 hive spaces width over (See Hive 3), and put a new brood box (still called Hive 2) in the place of the old hive, moved the marked queen and a 1 frame of brood and 1 drawn frame of honey into the new national hive on the original location where the flying bees would return to, and split the contents of the nearly full super over both hives with new frames

Last week on checking hive 2, we found the queen and 4 queen cups with royal jelly, so we clipped the queen. We couldn't find the queen the following day, and we removed all but 1 remaining queen cell.

This week, on opening Hive 2, we can't find the queen, there are no eggs, there are larve in all stages, but there are a number of queen cells in cups with larve in royal jelly, and 1 larger unsealed queen cell. There has been no apparent reduction in bees, and the super is full.

Any suggestions as to what has happend to the queen? Is it likely that the wing clipping caused a problem?

Hive 3
Hive 3 was checked for the first time yesterday. we again couldn't find a queen or princess, however there are still a number of sealed queen cells on 3 frames, so it would suggest that on splitting the hive they almost immediately started making new queens despite already having 2 queen cells. There was sealed brood but no larve or eggs (but we wouldn't expect that). Temperement started on 9, but ended on 2, where they got defensive and followed us for quite some distance and time (but there are lots of comments on here about aggressive hives at the moment).

We know that we should have tried to have queen cells at the same stage, but have lots of sealed queen cells. What should we do? Remove all apart from 2? Why so many queen cells where we had already put 2 in there?

Hive 1
2 weeks ago we found 4 queen cups in the hive - 1 with a grub and a very full brood box, but lots of eggs, although we didn't find the queen on the day, and a full super.

Last Saturday we saw the queen and took the opportunity to clip her. There were 5 queen cells (3 sealed) but there were still undrawn brood frames, althoguh the rest were full. The super was full, and we knew that we needed to split this hive ASAP but didn't have a spare brood box at the time.

The next day they swarmed. We found the queen on the ground, managed to catch her (despite a desperate attempt at escape involving a fairly convincing flight!) and we assume the swarm went back into the hive when they found the queen couldn't fly.

We borrowed a neuc box and put the queen and 2 frames of brood and 1 of honey into a 5 frame box as we didn't have a spare brood box.

On Hive 4, we left 2 unsealed queen cells and removed the rest.

On checking the neuc on Thursday, we couldn't find the queen but found 2 hatched queen cells (I don't quite know why we put queen cells in the neuc with the queen, I'm not sure we even realised we had done, but it was a bit rushed due to the swarm) plus new queen cells, no larve, no eggs but sealed brood, and moved the lot into a new national brood box with some dummy frames until we managed to make some new ones.

Last night, we found the queen with a small ball of bees on the ground, so put her back in the hive and added new frames to complete the brood box.

One of the neighbours knocked on the door this morning and said they thought they'd seen a swarm in someone elses garden, but we checked it out and asked the owner who had been in the garden, and they'd seen nothing.

So we check out Hive 1 afterwards and couldn't find the queen, and bee numbers seemed a little lower, but then they weren't in a neuc any more, so it could have been deceiving.

We couldn't see a princess, but we know 2 have hatched. So what do we do with the new queen cells?

Hive 4
Hive 4 had 2 unsealed queen cells. On checking for the first time today, we found 4 sealed queen cells and 1 hatched. We didn't see a princess, but removed 2 of the sealed queen cells and left 2.

Why do we have more sealed queen cells, and what should we have done differently? Were we right to leave 2 sealed queen cells? We think this is probably our least problematic hive, but...



So there we have it! My feeling is (coming from a position of complete ignorance) is to leave them alone and not disturb them for a few weeks and let them sort themselves out, cos thats what bees do.

However they're not my bees, and my wife wants to still have some!

So any thoughts??

(I'd try to get on a course myself this year but suspect they're full so will try for next year...! )

 

[oliver90owner]

It would be simpler (for all) if each original colony was discussed separately. Confusion does reign and when it rains it apparently pours!

Put simply, old queen leaves, generally when the first cell is capped (not this year, however, with the poor weather we have expeienced). New queens emerge and take over the old queen's duties.

The bees of any colony which has this swarming impulse (must reproduce, NOW) and whether the A/Sd part or the parent colony can build more queen cells. With more than a single casts (secondary-swarms) can issue.

Precautions need to be taken to avoid these casts by removing all newly built cells more than six days after the last eggs were laid, or in the cases where two cells have been left to mature, the hive needs to be moved just before expected queen emegence so that there are fewer flying bees (so that they just keep the one queen and she kills the other).

If those steps are not taken, further swarms are a likely possibility.

A choice can be made to leave only the one queen cell to mature and with other colonies available to rectify any cell failure, this is a good idea.

In your case, some of these precautions have not been taken, presumably. Further you appear to have mainly virgin queens, so must wait for them to fully develop, mate and start laying (can take a few weeks).

There is a law out there that states if something can go wrong it will and likely (where bees are concerned), several times over all at the same time!

What to do now? Remove excess cells where you know the queen has not emerged or leave one, if not sure. Leave the pair if they are the originals left. It seems that your queens have all emerged, so just leave one more and hope they haven't or won't swarm again. Then wait for them to get mated and start laying.

RAB

 

[SunnyRaes]

So you reckon that we probably have virgin queens in all hives and basically get rid of all the queen cells bar one in all the hives for simplicities sake?

(Thanks for being patient and actually reading it RAB, I know is long and complicated - didn't know how best to approach it!)

 

[enrico]

I couldn't have said it better RAB ....... I agree

 

[SunnyRaes]

It appears we've just had a cast swarm from Hive 3 - they're sitting in a tree at the moment down the railway embankment - not really accessible. this could explain why they were so antsy yesterday.

So I guess removing all bar 1 queen cell in this hive is now the appropriate action to take?

 

[Erichalfbee]

What I would have done in the beginning....for future reference.
As soon as you see queen cells you need to AS.
Move the colony over to one side. Put down in its place a new floor and brood box with frames of foundation or drawn or a mix. Take out the middle one.
Look through the original colony, find the queen, check there are no queen cells on that frame and move her over. Close up. I like your idea of splitting the supers between them .
In the parent mark one good open charged queen cell (you have another colony so you can afford to use just the one cell because you have a back up should anything go wrong). Destroy the rest.
Put the foundation frame at one end of the box. Close up.
5/6 days later go back into BOTH boxes. In the parent colony you are looking for more queen cells. Ones you might have missed if they were small and emergency ones made by the bees as they became queen-less. Take them all away. It is commonplace to now move the whole box to the other side of the parent colony but if you are confident there is only the one queen developing you can miss this bit out.
In the AS they may still have swarm fever and may make more swarm cells. This is the only time you knock down swarm cells to prevent swarming (somebody please correct me if I am wrong)

These extra looks in and manipulations should prevent all this subsequent swarming you encountered.
It should work
I say should...................

 

[Poly Hive]

The principle lesson here is to not leave more than one cell per unit. Preferably the youngest one.

As per Rab otherwise.

What book/s are you leaning on please?

PH

 

[SunnyRaes]

Thanks all - we appreciate your advice!

Erichalfbee - the first AS was done exactly as you describe, although we took more than 1 frame of brood and it seems there may have been some missed queen cells on one the frames we took over.

Whilst we were aware that the second hive had queen cells, we didn't have enough spares which we were frantically making up, and they swarmed before we were ready.

We didn't move either colony a second time, mainly because there wasn't room to do this. We'll replan the apiary over the winter I think to take this into account.

I guess this is where different advice starts to become confusing. My wife has never been told about cast swarms, different types of queen cell, hasn't been told about double brood boxes / brood and a half, has been told to leave a new hive alone, leave 2 queen cells, etc etc. I think she'll be going back to theory classes with me next year as 2 years of theory with no bees is different to actually having them!

I mean we had a friendly beekeeper round today and we found 9 queen cells on one frame! I think the suspicion is that we've got a very swarmy apiary and may need to consider requeening, athough they are very productive.

We are now completely out of frames although have plenty of brood boxes and a couple of supers left, so we'll be frantically restocking and building this week.

Who said beekeeping was relaxing?!

Oh, and we caught todays swarm, so that could theoretically take us to 5 hives... urgh....

 

[SunnyRaes]

Polly - the book we've got is Guide to Bees and Honey by Ted Hooper. Doesn't really cover anything we've had in the last 2 weeks!

 

[Erichalfbee]

I think the suspicion is that we've got a very swarmy apiary and may need to consider requeening, athough they are very productive.

I HAD ONE OF THOSE.
Last year I bought a Buckfast from Hivemaker and they haven't looked back
I think a lot of new beekeepers who buy commercial nucs get swarmy bees. They are after all easy to make

 

[SunnyRaes]

Ahh now Buckfast isn't a million miles from here (well, about 30 or 40) so I guess that a fairly local queen would be a good thing!

 

[kevrhcfag]

I HAD ONE OF THOSE.
Last year I bought a Buckfast from Hivemaker and they haven't looked back
I think a lot of new beekeepers who buy commercial nucs get swarmy bees. They are after all easy to make

Supposed to be the bible, but if you search online, A Practical Manual of Beekeeping seems OK and is free to download at various places.


Silly question but do you really want that many hives, it doesn't really sound like it, so is a swarm such a big deal to you in your situation. If the bees you have a swarmy all you have suceeded in doing is doubling or maybe even trebling your problems.

 

[SunnyRaes]

we decided that 5 or 6 hives would be our limit, although we honestly didn't expect to get there this year. However given the neuc we got last May went into the winter as 2 healthy hives (and we managed to get 30lb of honey off one hive), maybe we should have expected them to be swarmy, but I guess thats the learning experience for the year!

We are blatantly not as prepared as we would like as this challenge was completely unexpected, and we are now completely out of frames, foundation, we only have one roof left, only have 2 queen excluders, etc etc. Big order going in tonight methinks!

 

[SunnyRaes]

OK, daft question now... Surely swarmy bees (where we are getting both primary and potentially many cast swarms) are a problem? Not just for the neighbours, but in terms of the remaining colony health, production, etc.

I mean I know that this is a natural process, but surely they wouldn't go without knowing they're leaving behind a healthy enough colony at a known good hive?

 

[kevrhcfag]

I wouldn't imagine its in the thought process. Whatever reason they swarm, those that leave with the old queen and find a new home won't think about if the other colony will survive only bothered about their colony.

I'm new but if there are several casts surely there is a point where the original hive is unviable, but I doubt this stops the casts, but that is most probably why the new queens go around and kill the others before they hatch, no doubt someone much more experienced will let you know.

 

[protheroe]

we decided that 5 or 6 hives would be our limit, although we honestly didn't expect to get there this year. However given the neuc we got last May went into the winter as 2 healthy hives (and we managed to get 30lb of honey off one hive), maybe we should have expected them to be swarmy, but I guess thats the learning experience for the year!

We are blatantly not as prepared as we would like as this challenge was completely unexpected, and we are now completely out of frames, foundation, we only have one roof left, only have 2 queen excluders, etc etc. Big order going in tonight methinks!

it can be suprisingly expensive when your caught on the hop

 

[SunnyRaes]

Just a bit!

Now, will a colony swarm without a mated queen?? Given that todays swarm was from a host colony which was left with brood and queen cells, I wouldn't have thought there would be a mated queen already?

If there is, when we rehouse them in a brood box tonight, should we put a queen excluder on the bottom?

 

[oliver90owner]

If you keep on top of the job, casts should be avoidable - nearly always.

Your current problem was that you did not really know whether there was an emerged virgin in your swarmed colonies or if one had left leaving the last queen cell - hence the advice to remove all but one and risk one (more) cast.

Not checking, and destroying new queen cells when all larvae were too old to make further queen cells was a compounding problem.

I have never had a problem, with my bees, of building further cells in the A/Sd part. Some do, so one must check just to cover that risk. I have never had a swarmed A/S queen in ten years - it must just be my strain of bee, I suppose. But until I came on here, I never bothered to check and was never bothered with that problem.

Regarding casts, the parent colony will always be viable, but may well not survive - there is a difference (again some might think about this for themselves and some won't).

It is reported that only 25% of swarms go on to found a nest and survive for a year. The outcome from multiple casts is presumably as good as or more productive, in terms of surviving colonies, than from just the one prime that picks a poor new home and perishes in winter - bees have been doing this for millennia and would not have developed this trait had it not been a good strategy. It will depend on other factiors, of course - the weather and forage being a couple.

Your colonies may take several weeks to exhibit worker-brood laying queens. Your honey crop has likely gone with all these swarms hence the old adage of 'a swarm in May, etc', which back in the days of small individual crops from large numbers of skeps was fairly appropriate. If you were to unite them all, your crop may be at least a little more obvious (again one needs to think about how much 'effective crop', taking into account how much feed might be needed for one (as opposed to your five or six colonies) to get them through the winter.

More to beekeeping than supplying hives for bees. Beekeeping manipulations are usually simple affairs - it is the thinking part that baffles a lot.

RAB