Artificial swarm still making queen cells. What to do?

[pbh4]

It has been a very exciting month as a new beekeeper. The 5 frame nuc I obtained at the beginning of April exploded in the warm weather and soon ran out of drawn frame in the National brood box resulting in nectar and pollen in the middle of the frames and no room for the queen to lay. This was solved by giving them a super of drawn frames that I was able to buy from the guy who sold me the bees.

So, a total of 2 weeks after getting the bees they had expanded to 9 frames of brood box (still drawing the outer two frames) and had half filled a super with nectar. At this point I gave them a second super of foundation and we went away on holiday for a week (16-23 April). The queen excluder was on of the special Thornes "harmless" ("useless"?) orange ones.

We arrived back on Easter Sunday and I did an inspection. Some bees were getting through the QE and they had pretty much filled the super. There were lots of queen cups but I could see none with eggs or larvae though I did have some lingering doubt as it was cloudy and difficult to see. I left the queen cups in place. On Wednesday the replacement QE arrived and when I went to fit it I found five big, unsealed queen cells with grubs.

At this point I did an artificial swarm using Hooper's method except I left two frames of brood with the queen on the old site, not just one. The rest of the box was filled with foundation. I left only one open queen cell in the second colony with the rest of the brood frames.

Today, Sunday, I have inspected both colonies. The QC with the brood is now sealed and all looks well.

The problem is that the AS colony is still making queen cells. I saw the marked, 2010 queen. There are two frames of freshly drawn comb and she is laying lots of eggs. There are eggs in some of the queen cells. What should I do at this point?

Paul

 

[Midland Beek]

You could continue to destroy queen cells in with the queen, but better still you could take away any frames containing brood and return them to the queenless aprt of the split. keep them in touch with the foundation.

 

[pbh4]

They are actually drawing queen cups on the frames of freshly drawn comb.

Paul

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

 

[Poly Hive]

Watch. The eggs in the play cups are because they are still swarmy, still in fever mode. In three days or so have another look and see if the eggs are still there, and or grubs. If grubs then you are going to have to remove the queen and let them raise one. If not they have settled down.


PH

 

[darren64]

Watch. The eggs in the play cups are because they are still swarmy, still in fever mode. In three days or so have another look and see if the eggs are still there, and or grubs. If grubs then you are going to have to remove the queen and let them raise one. If not they have settled down.


PH

if she a young strong laying queen,could you try and intoduce her to a queenless colony?

 

[pbh4]

Watch. The eggs in the play cups are because they are still swarmy, still in fever mode. In three days or so have another look and see if the eggs are still there, and or grubs. If grubs then you are going to have to remove the queen and let them raise one. If not they have settled down.


PH

That is helpful advice. There were grubs today but I took down all the cells. I will check in a few days what they are up to and if there are new cells with grubs I will remove the queen.

When you say "remove" the queen, do you mean squish her or move her out of the way for a bit, keeping her as insurance? If the latter, where do I put her? I presume in a small nuc, but what do I put with her in terms of bees, frames, stores, brood? Any other tips?

Paul

 

[jezd]

If you can spot eggs in queen cell cups you are doing better than I have ever done!

Curious why you would leave two frames of brood as part of AS?

JD