Artificial Swarm Not Working..

[Millet]

God knows what is going on but the bees obviously have not read the rule book..
I did a pagden several days ago ..I placed the frame of brood the Queen was on into a brood box with frames of foundation only and stuck the supers above them..they have drawn one frame what the Queen has laid eggs in..however they are still making Queen cells which I knocked down..I can not see anything wrong with the Queen that would suggest supercedure..she is a 2018 Queen and was laying like a train before I did the AS and it is my biggest and most productive colony but also my evilest..any suggestions chaps..the only reason I have not splattered her is because I want her brood frames later on to make nucs with bought in Queens but it looks like it might not happen.
Steve.

 

[Poly Hive]

Bees do nothing invariably. Nor do they read books and some are a lot more determined to swarm than others.

PH

 

[masterBK]

You didn't provide drawn comb either side of the brood comb. You only gave them frames of foundation. The bees in that hive would be flying bees = older bees and therefore not really the best at producing wax and building comb (an real swarm has high proportion of younger house bees). The bees which were in swarm mode anyway would therefore be concentrated on that one brood comb causing congestion, limiting queen pheromone distribution resulting in another set of queen cells.

 

[Millet]

You didn't provide drawn comb either side of the brood comb. You only gave them frames of foundation. The bees in that hive would be flying bees = older bees and therefore not really the best at producing wax and building comb (an real swarm has high proportion of younger house bees). The bees which were in swarm mode anyway would therefore be concentrated on that one brood comb causing congestion, limiting queen pheromone distribution resulting in another set of queen cells.

I can give them more frames of emerging brood covered with nurse bees if that would help...infact I could put the new colony with no Queen into a nuc and give the Queen side the other five frames from the split..

 

[Millet]

I have been pondering and i think it is time I got my head around the snelgrove board...this is the second time a pagden has failed.

 

[drex]

I have found Snelgrove 2 (modified) more effective than Pagden, but a Couple of weeks ago I did my first AS of the season . They still swarmed, mercifully into a bait hive. The bees do what the bees will do.

 

[Murox]

You may find it worth looking at the Horsley method, simpler than Snelgrove I think.
http://barnsleybeekeepers.org.uk/horsley.html

 

[hexadecimal]

I have been pondering and i think it is time I got my head around the snelgrove board...this is the second time a pagden has failed.

I've tried a snelgrove board for the first time this year. Following the instructions to the letter I've found q cells in the bottom box with the q on inspection

After 3 weeks of it I've finally gone with a conventional pardon in the hope to stop them.

They are raming everywhere with osr at the mo 14x12s with 3 supers.
Luckily they haven't swarmed on the sealed q cells and the q's are still laying.

Going to be an interesting one this year.

 

[Beefriendly]

I've tried a snelgrove board for the first time this year. Following the instructions to the letter I've found q cells in the bottom box with the q on inspection

If queen cells where present when you started then you have got it the wrong way round. The queen should be in the top box with the queen cells before moving her to bottom box a few days later (Method 2). The queen cells then get torn down by the bees...or at least they usually do....not always is a good maxim here.
If she is in the bottom box it's preemptive. i.e before any queen cells are seen (Method 1).

 

[Millet]

I went through them yesterday and they where rather determined to swarm or replace the Queen..no sign of the clipped Queen ..seven more Queen cells found with a virgin emerging from one...I knocked a further six down one of which contained another fully formed Queen ready to emerge..
What i did notice and found strange the bees have not drawn a single frame in the brood box but they are continuing too fill the supers.

 

[drex]

Why would they draw out more frames in the brood box, when they don't have a queen to lay in them?

 

[Millet]

Why would they draw out more frames in the brood box, when they don't have a queen to lay in them?

Ready for a new Queen to lay in..

 

[Bakerbee]

Hi millet I had a similar situation with an artificial swarm that although did draw the box of Foundation they have filled it almost fully with pollen and nectar and very little room for the Queen she's laying in the odd cell that she can find that's empty and I've just had to take some polished cell frames from some other hives to put in there to give her room this hive has two supers on top that the bees are filling with plenty of space up there and today I found Queen cells. I knocked back the Queen cells found but have decided that this lot really want to swarm so fingers crossed as I am away on holiday now for 2 weeks so whatever happens shall happen I'm just going to let the be sort themselves out.