Help, my bees swarmed & there is no brood!
This is one of the most frequent problems for new beekeepers. What is happening?
• If a full colony swarms it is quite normal for the successor queen not to come into lay for 5 to 6
weeks.
• If beekeepers get worried about it and interfere too much they can kill any new queen
and be in more trouble!.
To solve it happening again the beekeeper needs to learn about Swarm control. (Another
project)
What is happening.
• Old queen gone with swarm
• 7 days later, cast goes - sometimes unobserved.
• They may cast twice!
• So, the successor queen may not have hatched until 10 days after the colony swarmed.
• No problem to the bees but it is to the beekeeper!
• It is normal for the new queen in such conditions, not to come into lay until there is NO BROOD
present.
• It is taught that a queen should come into lay in 4 weeks, but it is not emphasised that that can
be in the 6th week after the swarm has gone. (4 weeks plus 10 days)!
• As a trainer what you have to look for is are the cells in the centre of the brood nest
POLISHED? If they are , the queen is there..
• If not - try a test comb (eggs and larvae for them to raise cells on).
• Organising a test comb from a selected stock is perhaps the best thing to do in these
circumstances. It will either prompt the queen to come into lay or be the safest way of
solving the problem,
• though of course if the beekeeper has killed the queen by looking for her too hard, they
just have to learn not to do it again.
• Putting a cell in is a safe second alternative.
DON'T
• put a 'new' queen in! She will almost certainly be killed.
• The daughter queen is probably there, but they are difficult to spot, (being nubile and small as
her ovaries are not yet fully developed).
• The first eggs of a new queen are not the easiest thing to see, so the queen can have been in
lay for a week before beginners can see them. (All the more reason for people to learn to look at
brood and eggs with their reading glasses on and in good light).
• A large colony that has swarmed, can count on getting 30,000 emerging bees to nurse the next
lot. No problem, they swarmed because they could afford to split. Time is not of the essence to
them.
Nucleus
• With 3 to 5 comb nucs a different set of rules apply.
• They are small, they cannot expect 30,000 bees to emerge, so they must get the queen
mated and in lay ASAP.
• The queen can be in lay in a week after hatching!
• Now why didn't we take a nuc out with a queen cell as part of the aftermath of
swarming?
Ian McLean NDB
Worth a read Blue Spinaker
