Bees trying to swarm & requeening

[New Bee 2]

Hello!

I have 2 colonies that have 2011 queens having swarmed earlier in the season. They have just built up nicely - but now are producing queen cells. I have knocked them down for now - but wondered what your advice would be going forwards. Does it make sense to AS at this stage in the season? I have thinned out the brood box and given more room with supers but I really don't want to lose the bees.

Also - I think I have a duff strain of queen .. all swarm & no honey. Can I requeen now or should I wait until the end of the season. Maybe I could AS & introduce the new queen into the split colony rather than let them raise their own? .. would that work do you think .. or would they just bop her off??

I guess introducing a new queen into a colony looking to swarm is out of the question?

Thanks in advance for any help & advice

 

[sherwood]

Perform an AS. If you intend to reunite position the new brood box above the old with the entrance pointing in a different direction. Find a loaded and unsealed QC destroy all other QC's go in again in 3 days time and destroy any further QC's they have made. Wait to the Q in the upper box has mated and started laying remove Q from lower box and place in an apidea or in a Q cage above the crown board in another hive after 2 hours you can reunite the colonies using newspaper or icing sugar.

 

[New Bee 2]

Thanks Sherwood!

One quick question regarding the order .. so there is a new brood box on the bottom containing foundation & queen .. then a new floor directly on top of the new brood box .. entrance facing in another direction .. then current brood box containing QC and finally queen excluder and then supers??

Just wondering about food for the bottom lot

Is this correct? you're right .. I only want one colony at the end!

 

[oliver90owner]

I would suggest your re-entry, to remove any fresh queen cells, is a little later than 3 days. There may still be eggs if the times of day differ enough, and loads of larvae under 3 days old which could be developed into more queen cells. Unless you can be sure she has gone off-lay already.

RAB

 

[sherwood]

You may give the bottom box a frame of stores as well and if you have some a frame of drawn comb would not go amiss. In fact you may even give the bottom box a frame feeder full of light syrup to encourage the drawing of new comb just exclude these frames from any reunification as long as you have supers on that you intend to extract. I usually put some 1 or two frame dummy boards in the bottom box when I do this restricting the brood area.

Alan