artificial swarm question?

[biglongdarren]

havent done an artificial swarm yet but am sure i will have to at some point this year,my question is....

when i have lifted the queen from my original brood box that was showing signs of starting to swarm and placed her in the new brood box and set it on the old site, and have placed the old brood box with queen cells in it to the side of the old site and leave all for a week...well what do i do if after that week when i come to inspect my original queen that was going to swarm and find that for some reason that there is more queen cells made?(and i know for sure that they were made in that week and not just missed by me in the process of this all)...what steps do i take then?
Darren

 

[Mike a]

There are different methods for dealing with AS's.
In the past I tended to favour taking out the best frame with queen cells on it and placing it a nuc, check each cell carefully and keep only the two cells that have a good bed of queen food under the grubs. The rest of the queen cells on that frame are then crushed. I then find another two frames with lots of stores, pollen and if possible lots of sealed brood, eggs and larvae (no queen again) and place those frames into the nuc as well. I then put in one frame of drawn comb and an empty frame to fill the gap until later that evening when the empty frame is removed and replaced with a frame feeder with about 2 pints of syrup.

so in order
frame 1 - pollen, sealed honey, sealed brood, eggs and larvae
frame 2 - frame with queen cells
frame 3 - same as frame 1
frame 4 - drawn or part drawn frame
frame 5 - frame feeder with 1-2 pints of 1:1

The nuc is then moved to my alternative site several miles away.

The hive with the old queen in it is carefully checked to ensure there is no other remaining queen cells in it, the missing frames are replaced with drawn comb and then closed up again.

If you are not careful and fail to destroy all the remaining queen cells in the old queens hive in a few days time she will of swarmed (I dont clip my queens). Just bear in mind this method doesn't suit every bee keeper but its the method I've used for the last few years and for the most part its worked fine.

However this year I will try and keep all the queen cells by moving them into one queenless nuc until they are all sealed, in the mean time make up mini mating nucs or several more nucs then transfer queen cells into each, as I want to build up my colony numbers this year.
Just remember to feed small amount of syrup as the newly made up colony wouldn't have enough foraging bees to support it straight away.

 

[Erichalfbee]

..well what do i do if after that week when i come to inspect my original queen that was going to swarm and find that for some reason that there is more queen cells made?(and i know for sure that they were made in that week and not just missed by me in the process of this all)...what steps do i take then?
Darren

THAT is exactly what happened to me.The old queen was missing and there were three queen cells. I never worked out what had happened. I forgot to shake any extra bees in and their number didn't seem depleted so I didn't think she had swarmed anyway but she certainly wasn't there. I left them alone and two weeks later I found all three cells torn down. Two weeks after that there were eggs there and they were OK going into winter and are OK at the moment.
Perhaps you should leave two and close up. I'm sure somebody who really knows will tell you soon

 

[mbc]

Its quite common for the old queen to disappear when doing an artificial swarm. Sometimes it may be because the old queen was being superceded rather than the colony trying to swarm and sometimes its probably due to the stress of the change and possibly the bees rejecting their own queen due to the different smell in their hive with the new frames etc.
I find my bees often supercede a queen after either shook or artificial swarming even if the original queen does get laying again

 

[Erichalfbee]

That's good to know. I thought I'd done something wrong. It took me by surprise as it was a fairly newly bought nuc with an overwintered queen being looked after by a newbee

 

[biglongdarren]

is this the best method for me if i dont want to increase in hives?...am happy enough withh three for the time being.

 

[biglongdarren]

is this the best method for me if i dont want to increase in hives?...am happy enough withh three for the time being.

bearing in mind that when i have done the artificial swarm, and then wait till the new queen is mated and laying then kill the old queen and unite the two colonies?

 

[MuswellMetro]

I dont like the take nuc away three miles and leave the rest alone methods because you don't reduce the number of forager bees in the main box, so the likelihood of a second wave of QC and swarm instinct remains high

it would be better to follow any of the variants that give you both 1) depleted old brood box with only nurse bees and the QC with 2) new brood box on the old site with Q on one frame of brood, foundation and returning foragers

whether that is variants of the AS side by side, snelgrove or a split board Demaree methods is up for you

i will be using a split board Demaree artificial swarm as my site is congested and a side by side AS is difficult ( also good for allotments if they limit you to a set number of hives per plot because a Demaree or snelgtove can be done in one stack)

last year a lot my BKA's association and training hives that used the take away a nuc version swarmed again

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

i will be using a split board Demaree artificial swarm as my site is congested and a side by side AS is difficult ( also good for allotments if they limit you to a set number of hives per plot because a Demaree or snelgtove can be done in one stack)

If like me you're wondering what exactly a Demaree is, Dave Cushman will tell:

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/demaree.html