A swarm getting ready to swarm

[andyj301]

Two weeks ago I collected a swarm and placed it in a 6-frame commercial nuc. Yesterday, upon second inspection, they had drawn and filled the lot. Also, there were two empty queen cups at the bottom of one frame. I have transferred them into a commercial brood box and placed a super above the QE. Is there anything else I should be doing at this point?

 

[Finman]

Two weeks ago I collected a swarm and placed it in a 6-frame commercial nuc. Yesterday, upon second inspection, they had drawn and filled the lot. Also, there were two empty queen cups at the bottom of one frame. I have transferred them into a commercial brood box and placed a super above the QE. Is there anything else I should be doing at this point?

How big is your swarm? 6 frames----it is small
But queen cups does not mean nothing.

If you want the swarm stronger, give from another hives 2 frames of emerging brood. The swarm get capacity to handle nectar and it is big enough to use the super.

6 frames first. Then commercial 10 frames? Super is absolutely too much.

If the swarm fills too juch frames, move them to bigger hives and give to swarm empty combs. but 6 frames is too little start to a hive. Try to get one box full of bees.

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[enrico]

I would remove the super for the moment if you have used undrawn comb in the bb, if it is drawn comb don't worry too much, they need to have started to draw out all the brood frames before you add a super. The queen cups are just queen cups which all hives will make. When you see an egg or jelly in them then it becomes a different matter. Keep an eye on them to make sure you expand the hive before they run out of room.
Hope this helps
E

 

[Tabby15]

Can I ask what counts as running out of room? For example Would you put a super on once they've drawn 8 frames, lots of conflicting advice in books. I also have a swarm I hived(did not have a Nuc box) in a national. Drawn out 5 frames last week with 3 with eggs in it. Next inspection Friday.

 

[andyj301]

That's great, thank you to you both. I'll remove super for now. Not too sure if I can add any emerging brood, prior to swarming season I only had one colony and now I have four! Might try to dummy down the swarm by a couple frames as well.

 

[itma]

'Room' is room to lay eggs.
So it only counts once its drawn right out.

But they also need 'room' to evaporate nectar, and if that takes up all the empty drawn comb, then there's no room to lay.
If they start laying down excessive stores in the BB, remove those frames for the time being. You need to watch carefully to make sure that with HMQ ramping up and a flow of nectar, you (and they) don't get caught without enough drawn usable space. Things can change rather surprisingly quickly.

If you don't have a drawn super, get the foundation on a bit early to give them a chance to make it usable before it was needed yesterday.

 

[andyj301]

Thanks itma. I've removed the super, the bees had started drawing and filling that before drawing the brood frames. I also removed one of the undrawn brood frames so there are 10 instead.

 

[itma]

If you put a frame of foundation between brood and stores, it will be drawn quicker.

 

[Tabby15]

Thanks for the great advice, especially the tip about foundation between brood and stores.

 

[andyj301]

Thanks for the great advice, especially the tip about foundation between brood and stores.

Second that, the forum really helps get through a steep learning curve