Bees swarming....urgent advice please!

[Etton]

Help- 8am Tuesday and despite my doing a Pagden found a swarm this morning. Have captured and put into a brood box (not a Nuke) with 2 undrawn foundation. Have blocked the entrance with docks to stop them escaping. Hive is 3 feet from one they came from. Hopefully have the queen. My first swarm...what should I be doing now? Should I unblock the entrance...Thanks

 

[idg]

What I would have done was put a queen excluder under the brood box to prevent the queen from leaving. Others advise against this as you are effectively trapping the queen and if they want to go, they cannot. You have to be careful blocking the entrance because the swarm bees have to get in too!
I would certainly open the entrance then decide if you want to faff about with a queen excluder or leave them alone to decide for themselves.
Do not feed until 3-4 days time. Then feed 1:1 syrup to help them draw foundation. You also need to add more frames. Have you got any drawn?

 

[madasafish]

Unblock. They will re-orientate to the new hive. Bees seem to lose all orientation after swarming..

 

[enrico]

yes unblock the entrance, I hope you have more than two frames in there or they will make comb in all the spaces. Fill the box with Undrawn foundation. Then leave them to it
E

 

[Cussword]

I hope you have more than two frames in there or they will make comb in all the spaces. Fill the box with Undrawn foundation. Then leave them to it
E

You need more frames.

 

[Arfermo]

How about clipping the queen in what seems to be your only hive. That or split using any other QCs?

 

[Finman]

Help- 8am Tuesday and despite my doing a Pagden found a swarm this morning. Have captured and put into a brood box (not a Nuke) with 2 undrawn foundation. Have blocked the entrance with docks to stop them escaping. Hive is 3 feet from one they came from. Hopefully have the queen. My first swarm...what should I be doing now? Should I unblock the entrance...Thanks

You must unblock the entrance. Propably it has laying queen. It is rare that a swarm escapes from new hive.

Take it easy. It is good that you got the swarm so easily. Next step is look, is the main hive making after swarm. Propably it has capped queen cells there.
.

 

[RogueDrone]

give them a frame of brood from your original hive this tends to keep them where you want them and as others have said give frames of foundation so they can empty honey stomach wax building.

 

[Etton]

Thanks for all help. Now adding new undrawn foundation, have unsealed hive so fingers crossed my one hive from last week is now 3 following AS Thursday and today's swarm...have put QX under swarm too.

 

[Finman]

Thanks for all help. Now adding new undrawn foundation, have unsealed hive so fingers crossed my one hive from last week is now 3 following AS Thursday and today's swarm...have put QX under swarm too.

It is not that difficult. Couple of stings and that is all. You cannot work with crossed fingers.

 

[beeno]

Thanks for all help. Now adding new undrawn foundation, have unsealed hive so fingers crossed my one hive from last week is now 3 following AS Thursday and today's swarm...have put QX under swarm too.

All good so far. You do have to see what you have got to deal with in the hive the 'swarm' issued from or did they abscond?

 

[Etton]

Appreciate all replies but ended up poorly. Placed the swarm in a hive and when returned to fill with foundation the bees had vanished.. Presume I hadn't got the queen after all or she escaped before I put on the bottom queen ex. I should have stayed to watch but dashed out to get foundation... Yes I know I should be ready! Checked last weeks Pagden AS hive from where the swarm came out and no queen but also no queen cells. The other hive where I left one queen cell I found 3 more and capped, so I stuck one to top of a frame in the queen less hive. If the old queen that's gone left eggs maybe they will convert to a QC. Wonder why they would swarm with no queen cells remaining.

 

[pargyle]

Appreciate all replies but ended up poorly. Placed the swarm in a hive and when returned to fill with foundation the bees had vanished.. Presume I hadn't got the queen after all or she escaped before I put on the bottom queen ex. I should have stayed to watch but dashed out to get foundation... Yes I know I should be ready! Checked last weeks Pagden AS hive from where the swarm came out and no queen but also no queen cells. The other hive where I left one queen cell I found 3 more and capped, so I stuck one to top of a frame in the queen less hive. If the old queen that's gone left eggs maybe they will convert to a QC. Wonder why they would swarm with no queen cells remaining.

When you capture a swarm it's best to drop them into a box adjacent to the place where they have swarmed ... if you have managed to scoop/sweep the queen into the box you will usually find that the rest of the swarm duly marches into the box .. if you haven't got her then they will tend to cluster around wherever she is. If you leave the box where it is until it gets dark then the bees (with a bit of luck) will all go into their new home and you can then seal it up - move it to wherever you want it and unseal it - in the mornng they will be reorienting and as long as they are happy with their new home they will be fine .. a frame of brood or a frame of drawn comb from you existing hive (if that's definitely where they came from) may help to keep them there. I'm not convinced of the QE beneath the box idea .. I think the more you try to confine bees the more they do to confound you !

I know this is shutting the gate after the horse has bolted - but you will be collecting other swarms in the future ... it's all a learning curve.

I suspect that you are right and you did not have the queen but it's not unheard of that swarms will abscond - if the scouts have marked another site for their new home and the lobby is strong (and perhaps they did not like the box you offered them - or something else) then they will push off ...

It's worth a good look around the area as they may still be hanging about somewhere - swarms are not always that obvious - they can get inside bushes, up trees, even underground or very unusual places ... compost bins seem to be a favourite or stored beekeeping equipment. Good luck, you did well to get as far as you did....

 

[beeno]

Hi Etton,
This is beekeeping and sometimes it is exhausting. However, the 'post mortem' is the most important thing (although no one has died).
1. Are you sure the queen was in the AS part in the first place?
2. What type of QX do you use, because if is sags in the middle it will leave a gap for the queen to get through. I am asking this because she has potentially escaped through QX twice.
You may not have had her the 2nd time and it is not unheard of for them to swarm without leaving a QC behind as they did from the 1st AS. As a matter of interest how many bees have you got in the AS part now and are you 100% sure she is not in there.
I am just asking because it is very easy to overlook something in a stressful situation. Is there a possibility that she is in the parent hive? A slimmed down queen can be very quick and flighty.

 

[Etton]

Thanks for all advice and encouragement. Have learnt more particularly not immediately taking the collected swarm and moving her into a hive. The queen was definitely there before as I only checked on Saturday, I had to remove more queen cells. Now just 2/3 seams of bees. If I'm right and there are eggs there, maybe they will make more queen cells or my ham fisted joining a queen cell from the other hive with one queen cell may work... but I doubt it!

 

[beeno]

Hi Etton,
If the queen is not in a hive, the hive's immediate response is to make emergency queen cells from a 1 or 2 day old larva, so that is no proof that you still have a queen present, in actual fact the opposite.

 

[Itchy]

A slimmed down swarm queen will get through queen excluders. Box up, lock in with a little fondant and a spray of water for a couple of days, they usually stay.

 

[masterBK]

Excluders are based on the principle that the queen can't get her rigid thorax through them. When a queen is slimmed down for swarming this only affects her abdomen and her thorax dimentions remain unaltered so a slimmed down queen should not be able to get through an excluder.

 

[Cussword]

Excluders are based on the principle that the queen can't get her rigid thorax through them. When a queen is slimmed down for swarming this only affects her abdomen and her thorax dimensions remain unaltered so a slimmed down queen should not be able to get through an excluder.

That's what I was led to believe.

 

[BeeJayBee]

Thanks for all advice and encouragement. Have learnt more particularly not immediately taking the collected swarm and moving her into a hive.

For next time, and a little light reading, google "B8KA collecting swarm" and read the pdf.

I always return to remove the collected swarm from the site just before dusk, I never remove the box during the day unless it's raining because there will always be scouts and foragers returning to the swarm's temporary site and it's a waste to leave them to die on their own.