Capped QC's

[Stickyfingers]

Ok 2 of my hives had capped QC's and and few other cells were charged. Tried an AS on one. The other had to tear down and added a super as just got to overwhelmed. It was seven days since last inspection. Queen seen in one, the other has always been elusive but there were eggs in there.

Question is why didn't they swarm already?

 

[sunshinemedic]

Maybe they are waiting for the weather to clear a bit?

 

[Stickyfingers]

Maybe they are waiting for the weather to clear a bit?

Weather has been good down here. I'm round the corner from you in Tolworth.
Cleared all the cells 7 days ago and these were properly developed so surprised they did this so quickly.

 

[itma]

Cleared all the cells 7 days ago and these were properly developed so surprised they did this so quickly.

What was that supposed to achieve?

QC is only open-cell for 5 days, and if they start on a day-old larva ...

 

[Stickyfingers]

What was that supposed to achieve?

QC is only open-cell for 5 days, and if they start on a day-old larva ...

There were play cells last week, nothing charged. These were removed on normal inspection.

thought they are sealed on day 8 though?

 

[thebhoy]

had similar situation last weekend....did AS...on Saturday, on Sunday the flyers had returned to old hive location / new hive. The hive with QC looked so low on nurse bees that I decided to rejoin by doing a Demaree, placing above 2 supers , making up a 3 frame nuc with one QC and knocking down all others.

They swarmed on Monday ... but.....returned to hive....my queen is clipped so couldn't go....just checked today and still there with two frames of eggs added since Monday.
The nuc knocked down the original QC and raised 4 new ones, I knocked one down today and will decide on cutting two out later this week to put in a mating hive after giving them time to develop....taking a gamble

 

[itma]

There were play cells last week, nothing charged. These were removed on normal inspection.

thought they are sealed on day 8 though?

Important to distinguish between 'Play Cups' and 'Queen Cells".
Both in understanding - and in the hive.

Play cups - you don't normally get a lot of them at once.If you have a bunch of them, look closely for eggs!
Queen Cells are indeed normally sealed on day 8 after the egg in question was laid.

In your eradication effort, if you had missed even one "play cup with an egg", and the egg you missed was 3 days old, then you'd only have 5 days before sealing (and normal swarm departure).

Knocking down QCs is generally counterproductive.

2 of my hives had capped QC's and and few other cells were charged. Tried an AS on one. The other had to tear down ...

Have a read ==>> www.wbka.com/pdf/a012queencells.pdf‎

Destroying queen cells to prevent swarming never has been and never will be a successful method of swarm control. If you destroy one lot of queen cells the bees will immediately make some more and will probably swarm earlier than normal in their development - often before the first cells are sealed. If you destroy queen cells twice you run the
risk of the colony swarming and leaving behind no provision
for a new queen. Any delay of swarming that you induce by destroying cells will probably result in the prime swarm being larger than it would have been if you had not interfered.

Why hadn't a swarm gone, even though QCs were sealed?
Maybe simply that the weather wasn't good enough.
Departing any time while the cell is sealed is perfectly possible. They have an 8-day window of opportunity. They don't HAVE to go the moment the first cell is sealed. But they could. And if QCs have been "torn down", they may not wait for the next batch to be sealed ...

 

[Stickyfingers]

Need to do an AS but can't find her! Not brushed up on the technique without finding her.

 

[kathrynat]

If you have a few spare brood boxes, put the frames in pairs in each brood box. The queen will go to the dark side between one of the pairs so she should be easier to find. ( I hope that makes sense)

 

[Skyhook]

What was that supposed to achieve?

QC is only open-cell for 5 days, and if they start on a day-old larva ...

The surprise is how often weekly inspections will find a colony that is preparing to swarm, rather than one that has. I've never clipped, but I sometimes think I should.


.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Need to do an AS but can't find her! Not brushed up on the technique without finding her.

Take new brood box with new foundation and ideally one frame with drawn foundation for queen to start laying in and place in original hive location.

Empty/brush ALL bees into this new box, and place a QX on top.

Then take the original brood box (now empty of bees) and place it on top of the QX in original brood box location(with eggs brood etc in) , with crown board supers etc as normal

So you now know you have the queen in the base section on new foundation (as you want for a AS)

Very quickly the nurse bees (non flying bees) will move upstairs to nurse the brood and your QC /s

Next day, move this top section to a new location as a new hive.

 

[drstitson]

"Cleared all the cells 7 days ago and these were properly developed so surprised they did this so quickly."

sticky fingers - i'd suggest you read the excellent welsh assembly QC booklet.

clearing queen cells does nothing to prevent the swarming instinct. and in fact may lead to new QCs being developed even quicker than expected, as you have found.
sounds like you have been lucky not to lose swarms in the meantime.

 

[Stickyfingers]

"Cleared all the cells 7 days ago and these were properly developed so surprised they did this so quickly."

Apologies in my use of the word 'cells'. Meant play cups. None of these were charged and very small. There also wasn't that many. I think though that in their rapid expanse, overcrowding had triggered them.

By no means out of the woods yet though need to find her and do the AS. Or worst case AS without ASAP.

 

[drstitson]

No need to clear play cups.

 

[Pete D]

Just as an extra thing to consider...................were they swarm cells or superceedure.
From what I have seen and heard from others there were a lot of poorly mated queens last year and several colonies are tring to remedy that themselves......... a colony wouldnt swarm if they thought the queen was no good, would they ?
As previously mentioned the Welsh booklet is very useful and helps explain the difference between what you see when you open up the hive and see queen cells. http://www.wbka.com/pdf/a012queencells.pdf
As I said just a consideration, something more to think about
cheers

 

[Stickyfingers]

Quick update. One AS done seems, to be no problem.
With the other I couldn't find the queen. Anyway just found her. Looks completely different has no dot and it quite thin. There are eggs but but there are plenty of empty cells.

1. So questions, could she have been replaced late last year (October) as this is the first proper time I've seen the queen although I did get a glimpse last week before all the QC's.
2. could they have just polished the mark clean away.
3.Is she thin as could be ready to fly?
4 or maybe this supersedure?