Advice required

[Peterbee]

What are my bees trying to tell me??

Buckfast queen. Lovely bees. Plenty of OSR honey this year. Brood and a half plus 3 supers.

Sunday 16 June spotted 2 Queen cells, Popped them into another hive hoping for a successful new colony. Queen not seen.

Visited today - 25 June. 3 more queen cells. Queen not spotted. No sign of unsealed brood. Decided to leave these cells risking a swarm as it seemed that a new queen was required by the colony.

Continued to inspect the supers above the queen excluder and found sealed and unsealed brood in many of the frames not occupied with honey. Good brood pattern and plenty of eggs.

Ended up bringing the Queen Excluder to underneath the top super which I emptied of bees so that all the bees were now under the Queen Excluder. I now have brood and 3 halves which is more than I want but at least the producer of the eggs in the supers is now below the QE.

My questions are:

What produced the eggs? Can laying workers produce eggs in a good brood pattern and in good quantities or is their brood always scattered?

If it was the queen in the supers how did she get there? Did she slip through the QE / I misplaced her on an inspection ?

What are the queen cells in the brood? Are they swarm cells or were they intended to replace the queen who could well have been above the QE? Can the bees in the brood detect a queen above the QE or did they decide they were queenless and produce the queen cells?

What should I do about the queen cells in the brood? Should I remove them to prevent swarming or do the bees need them for a replacement Queen?

Do Buckfasts swarm? In my experience they do not but is that correct?


Any opinions would be gratefully received !

 

[BeeJayBee]

Do Buckfasts swarm? In my experience they do not but is that correct?

All healthy honey bees swarm, it's the only way they can 'breed'.

A nucleus colony will not always be big enough to swarm in the first year, but the next year it should be. The workers take the old queen, leaving behind the wherewithal for the remaining bees to make themselves at least one new one.

Once they've settled into their new home the old, swarmed, queen will be superseded before the autumn.

If yours haven't ever swarmed before then your earlier swarm control must have been absolutely spot on - congratulations.

But, by leaving three queen cells you risk losing three swarms, which will seriously deplete the remaining colony.

Could you take a frame containing one queen cell and put it into another box - along with some frames of brood and a good helping of house bees - to make an insurance nuc?

 

[Walrus]

Presumably by queen cells you mean unsealed?

One thing for sure is that a queen got above your QE.

Some colonies have 2 laying queens.

They may have swarmed, or are about to.

 

[Beeline]

If it was the queen in the supers how did she get there? Did she slip through the QE / I misplaced her on an inspection ?

I have had two hives this year where the queens have simply slipped through the QX at will - laid above and below. I've changed out the QX but still made no difference. Nothing wrong with their brood pattern either so I couldn't fault them. Not normally a problem if you're in no rush to extract as the pressure of stores accumulating above will force her down but it was a problem on the OSR because then you're running against time - stores setting hard.

 

[Arfermo]

Odd isn't it. I've had capped drone cells above the QE on 4 frames (I use drone foundation in supers) for no apparent reason. Shook all the bees in supers out onto a Taranov ramp covered in white cloth leading up to the entrance but no sign of another Q. Marked/clipped Q was below QE yesterday. Now waiting a week to see next move. Puzzling - but bees are like that.

 

[pargyle]

Odd isn't it. I've had capped drone cells above the QE on 4 frames (I use drone foundation in supers) for no apparent reason. Shook all the bees in supers out onto a Taranov ramp covered in white cloth leading up to the entrance but no sign of another Q. Marked/clipped Q was below QE yesterday. Now waiting a week to see next move. Puzzling - but bees are like that.

For all those Newbies like me who were wondering:

Taranov ramp

Thanks Dave Cushman:

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/taranovswm.html

 

[BeeJayBee]

Once they've settled into their new home the old, swarmed, queen will be superseded before the autumn.

Sorry, my mistake and that's wrong - the old queen won't always be superseded before the autumn. I should have said might be, will probably be, or may be ...

For all those Newbies like me who were wondering:

Taranov ramp

Thanks Dave Cushman:

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/taranovswm.html

There's a description on this blog http://tinyurl.com/otd3fxc

I've tried using a Taranov board to make a split, it was really easy.