Artificial swarm, no queen found

EdNewman · May 4, 2012

Hi All, I need to do an artificial swarm but I can't find the queen (open QC's stage). I was walked through the process at the association meeting but could some one please confirm I have this right in my head?!

1. move existing bb to one side.
2. put a new bb with foundation on the old floor add an empty super (to act as a super), brush all bees from the old bb into the new. Remove the empty super add a queen excluder and then put the old bb on the top of this and close up.
3. After 24hrs add a snelgrove board between the two bb and open an entrance on the snelgrove in the opposite direction to the floor entrance.
4. Leave for 3 weeks and then check both bb's are queen right. If so, move the top on to a new floor next to the old with the entrance point in the direction you had the open snelgrove entrance.

Assuming I have got the above correct I have a question. My Snelgrove board has a mesh to allow scent to mingle. Would this not leave the bees thinking they are still one hive (just queen and flying bees in the bottom box, brood in the top box) and therefore still swarm?

Thanks in advance,
Ed.

Poly Hive · May 4, 2012

I will suggest two things for you to ponder. Neither of which is to do with the board you are proposing using. I take it you can't stretch to two sets of kit so as to have two separate hives?

1. Brushing bees in my experience is a terrible job and horrid for the bees and they react predictably. Be warned. Think neighbours, kids animals and so on.

2. If you can't find the queen you are stuffed. Has she already gone? Can you see fresh eggs?

This may assist. http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=581&highlight=finding+queen

PH

EdNewman · May 4, 2012

Poly Hive said:
I will suggest two things for you to ponder. Neither of which is to do with the board you are proposing using. I take it you can't stretch to two sets of kit so as to have two separate hives?

1. Brushing bees in my experience is a terrible job and horrid for the bees and they react predictably. Be warned. Think neighbours, kids animals and so on.

2. If you can't find the queen you are stuffed. Has she already gone? Can you see fresh eggs?

This may assist. http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=581&highlight=finding+queen

PH

Thanks PH,
I do have a spare set of everything that I can use, what would you suggest?

as for the queen, I have never seen this queen! Neither has my old mentor or the two other people who have done training on this hive. We haven't tried your suggested trick of moving the hive to get rid of the flying bees, but we have tried the splitting frames bit, and still couldn't find her.

I don't think she has swarmed yet, probably because of the weather, when I came across the QC's the hive was still packed with bees and there were eggs.

Cheers,
Ed.

newportbuzz · May 4, 2012

you could try spliting the hive while ignoring the queen.
this will leave you with a new brood box with nothing but frames or a frame or two of brushed brood(no queen cells). and supers with bees on the old stand and just emerging and young bees and the queen cells and the queen on the new stand this should reduce the spots the queen can hide in hugely. then its just up to you to find the queen and move her to the old stand

the other posibility is the queen is dead and these are emergency cells
if you have eggs this is not the case.

SimonB · May 4, 2012

Ed, I did similar to you, but at step 3 I split the colonies after a few hours (as advised on another thread).

I'm not convinced that there was an even split, but today (7 days later) I have moved the parent colony to the other side of the AS. However she is due early next week and I worry that there won't be sufficiently good weather before then to get the flyers out and returning to the AS colony.

The brushing of the bees was pretty stressful to both bees and keeper, I felt terrible, but like you have never seen any queen in my colony (had two since nuc in 2009) and wanted to get the AS done in what turned out to be a small window in the bad weather.

When I come to unite I hope to be able to spend the time spotting both queens, squishing one and marking the other. Hopefully then I shall become more successful in the future.

Regarding the Snelgrove Board, I am no expert but when I looked into them to see what they were/did it looked like that when the entrance is open the mesh should be sealed off by a sliding piece - does yours not?

EdNewman · May 4, 2012

Thanks Simon. My Snelgrove board doesn't do that. I would be easy enough to cover the vent once the split is done, I was just hoping to get confirmation that is should be closed / open.

Suzi Q · May 4, 2012

Hi Ed, I would like the answer to that question also, my bees swarmed from the bottom box, despite only having foundation, a frame of stores and the queen. There's a virgin(s) in there now and I'm hoping for better weather in the next week!