Artificial Swarm on Queenless Hive

[baldrickbee]

Hi Please could you advise me. I have had colonies of bees for a year but this is my first encounter with the swarm season. A couple of weeks back I failed to find the marked queen with the intention of making a nuc for swarm control. A few days latter i found cluster on hive front, boxed them up and took to another apiary site though not sure if it was a proper swarm with the queen that is clipped or just a group of flying bees. I read i could do an artificial swarm on the colony even if the queen is not found. At this stage I believed the queen was probably still in the original colony so i did the artificial swarm. Next day i discover the queen was in the swarm now re-hived at the other apiary. So i have split the colony which was queenless before the split. 2 days before i did the artificial swarm i knocked out all Q cells 23/5 (mistake)2 days latter on 25/5 In the original brood body were four uncapped QC's. I put a Frame of Bias in the new brood body on the flying site. Today 6 days latter (31/5) The queen cells are sealed. My question is should i move the brood box to the other side of the hive body to transfer flying bees into it or reduce the QC to just one in both colonies before the new queen emerges in a few days. I understand hives will not produce casts if there is only one QC present or a lack of flying bees when the virgin emerges. Or because they have been made queenless and the bees are responding to an emergency queen loss problem this scenario will not arise. Instead the queen will emerge and kill any others in the hive then go on mating flight so i don't need to worry about swarming . Thanks for your views on this

 

[Murox]

Trying to clarify - you have the original queen with an artificial swarm at another apiary.
You have one, or is it two brood boxes now containing more than one sealed queen cell in each box.and you know the dates/days.
Your question is actually about preventing cast swarms???

 

[baldrickbee]

Hi Murox Thanks Hope this clarifies. Yes the original queen with the small swarm is now housed in a hive at another apiary. Yes there are now 2 brood boxes 3 foot part both with sealed queen cells (this is my attempt at the artificial swarm).
Dates 19/5 swarmed, swarm remove with Q (clipped so stayed on brood box)
22/5 Removed all Q cells (date above wrong 23/5)
25/5 Did artificial swarm QC's confirmed in both boxes, brood and flying bees box (at this stage did not realise i had removed the Q on the 19/5)
31/5 All Q.C's sealed in original brood box 4 of them did not look in other box
Super on both boxes
Yes so the question is will they swarm again or having done this once will the Q's if more than one emerges just fight it out then go off and mate, so swarming should not be an issue? Thanks

 

[Murox]

Well you have effectively split one hive into three. As long as the two brood boxes have sufficient bees, drones and stores I would reduce the queen cells to one per brood box (some will say keep two) and carefully check each brood frame for any more queen cells you may have missed. Ensure the Q-right hive has enough bees and stores too. If they are not strong enough think about uniting. Although the bees always have last word I don't favour leaving multiple Q cells and "letting queens fight it out", missing a queen cell(s) can often leads to 'casts'. This Link is to the WBKA document library, Wally Shaw has written some good information about swarming.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Is a small nuc likely to swarm?
Queens don’t fight it out though do they. The first out stings the ones not yet emerged or the bees do the deed.

 

[baldrickbee]

Thanks Murox i hope you have a good season