Artificial swarm without identifying queen - best method?

[ksjs]

With a couple of variations this is pretty much all I did for my first two years beekeeping, though that was 30 years ago, PM's version is a bit of an update. But I can assure you it works.

This is genius and sounds like exactly what I'm after - much appreciated.

On a tangent, had a thought lying in bed last night (been giving this a lot of thought): do people ever use QE beneath BB as a means of swarm prevention even if only a temporary one? I guess it's just a bit wrong i.e. they want to swarm so you should let them (even if this is in a managed way) but what harm are you actually doing to them? The only thing I can think of is that the queen may not have enough laying space but surely this is surmountable by way of simply having a double BB for example.

 

[enrico]

You end up with a hive choked with drone and a ery frustrated queen, tats why?? Trust me it doesn't work!

 

[Eyeman]

Originally Posted by Bob Bee
With a couple of variations this is pretty much all I did for my first two years beekeeping, though that was 30 years ago, PM's version is a bit of an update. But I can assure you it works.

If you have been beekeeping long enough a time will come when you want to do an A/S and can't find the queen. The method described by Bob Bee is sound and with some minor adjustments:
1. Leave a frame of brood without eggs or young larvae in the bottom BB- queen more likely to stay put and you can check that queen is really there sooner by seeing eggs in some of the empy cells. If you only leave foundation they need to draw that out before you know your queen right.
2. If no signs of queen activity in bottom BB after one week then I put a test frame in as the queen might never have been there.- Remember you couldn 't see her in the first place!
3. I find it so much easier and needs less space & kit to 'vertically' A/S. Keep it simple and just put a solid floor under the top BB and move the entrance around every few days to get the flyers back with the original queen.
4. Only leave one uncapped QC in the top BB and mark its position with a pin. Recheck in 5 days to make sure they haven't produced a load more QC's- if they have remove all new ones.
Alec

 

[beeone]

this sounds perfect for my problem also. Just spent hot afternoon looking for queenie on brood and half to do AS but to no avail .loads of bees hanging around on front of hive, found 3 queeen cells. dont think she has gone as looks like same amount of bees as 2 days ago. will try the PM version tomorrow if the little darlings havent gone by then.

good luck KSJS and thanks bob bee for the detailed description

 

[ksjs]

3. I find it so much easier and needs less space & kit to 'vertically' A/S. Keep it simple and just put a solid floor under the top BB and move the entrance around every few days to get the flyers back with the original queen.
4. Only leave one uncapped QC in the top BB and mark its position with a pin. Recheck in 5 days to make sure they haven't produced a load more QC's- if they have remove all new ones.
Alec

Thanks for this. Just some questions:

- why would you put a solid floor under top BB? Surely the point of the QE is that the nurse bees can return to the original brood?
- what do you mean when you say move entrance around, if hive in same location does a 90o turn or whatever angle make any significant difference, if so how?
- you say leave one uncapped QC in top BB. I assume this is during inspection after 3 days once the top BB has been moved i.e. there won't be any QCs initially when you place original BB on top so you have to wait 3 days to see what they do? At this point you select one QC and leave hive. I don't see why you'd check in 5 days - after 3 days have elapsed the eggs / larvae are too old to make emergency QCs?

I'm sure I'm mis-understanding something but answers to those questions would be useful. Cheers.

 

[Eyeman]

Hi
Solid floor under top brood after a couple of days once nurse bees have moved up to look after brood- this then behaves as a separate colony
I presumed you were doing an A/S because of queen cells so instruction was to leave one in top brood box.
Turning the entrance of the top box was to get some of the flyers out and back into the bottom box. Probably not really needed in this situation. It's something I do when I have found the queen and I'm doing a vertical A/S