collected swarm with queen cells

[TonyPayne]

My one hive swarmed about a moth ago ( another problem in another thread) but I managed to collect them and put them in a new hive. They are doing really well, with loads of new eggs and brood, but this week I also found about 6 queen cells or cups. I have torn the down this time but want ed to know if this is normal bee behaviour or are they trying to tell me something about their queen? I know for a fact she is only 1 year old. This hive was the donor for the frame of brood mentioned in another thread, does that have a bearing?

Should I continue to destroy the queen cups and cells if I find more next week? Do bees ever give up trying to swarm and settle Down!!?

Thanks,
Tony

 

[mjt68]

My one hive swarmed about a moth ago ( another problem in another thread) but I managed to collect them and put them in a new hive. They are doing really well, with loads of new eggs and brood, but this week I also found about 6 queen cells or cups. I have torn the down this time but want ed to know if this is normal bee behaviour or are they trying to tell me something about their queen? I know for a fact she is only 1 year old. This hive was the donor for the frame of brood mentioned in another thread, does that have a bearing?

Should I continue to destroy the queen cups and cells if I find more next week? Do bees ever give up trying to swarm and settle Down!!?

Thanks,
Tony

Maybe they want to swarm again - do they have enough space? How many frames? Are there empty cells for queens to lay or is nest backfilled? Is there a super on?

 

[TonyPayne]

Hi mjt68, I added a super a couple of weeks back but they didn't start to draw it until last week. From reading the books they could do with the super but there is still some space in the brood body. Will they empty out some of the pollen and honey once they can put it in the super? Some of the frames are quite heavy.

 

[mjt68]

Hi mjt68, I added a super a couple of weeks back but they didn't start to draw it until last week. From reading the books they could do with the super but there is still some space in the brood body. Will they empty out some of the pollen and honey once they can put it in the super? Some of the frames are quite heavy.

They should move stores up. If the stores are capped, you could scratch cappings with hive tool. To be on the safe side I'd remove Q in accordance with your favourite swarm control procedure.

 

[kevrhcfag]

Are the QC's charged, if so wasting your time ripping them down.

If swarming again, either you have messed up big style or queen needs to go the journey.

 

[YorkshireBees]

Are the QC's charged, if so wasting your time ripping them down.

If swarming again, either you have messed up big style or queen needs to go the journey.

There is a big difference between a Queencell and a Queencup.

They build cups all the time and you can remove or ignore them unless there is an egg or pool of royal jelly and larva in it then it is a Queencell!

If they are building queencells, just removing them will NOT stop them swarming and in some cases can leave you with a queenless colony!

 

[TonyPayne]

Are the QC's charged, if so wasting your time ripping them down.

If swarming again, either you have messed up big style or queen needs to go the journey.

Whoops! I think I've just realised what might have happened! When I did the frame donation i actually did a frame 'swap' and didn't remove all the bees from each of the frames. This means there were bees from the queenless colony in both hives. I'm guessing that they got busy creating a queen in both places. Does that sound plausible?

But moving on, it sounds like I need to carry out an artificial swarm control exercise and then combine them again at a later date?

 

[Anduril]

Whoops! I think I've just realised what might have happened! When I did the frame donation i actually did a frame 'swap' and didn't remove all the bees from each of the frames. This means there were bees from the queenless colony in both hives. I'm guessing that they got busy creating a queen in both places. Does that sound plausible?

But moving on, it sounds like I need to carry out an artificial swarm control exercise and then combine them again at a later date?

You swapped frames with bees on each, sounds as though you used a frame with the queen on it.

 

[TonyPayne]

Hi Anduril, I'm about 90% sure I didn't do that as I did check very very very carefully.

 

[mjt68]

Whoops! I think I've just realised what might have happened! When I did the frame donation i actually did a frame 'swap' and didn't remove all the bees from each of the frames. This means there were bees from the queenless colony in both hives. I'm guessing that they got busy creating a queen in both places. Does that sound plausible?

But moving on, it sounds like I need to carry out an artificial swarm control exercise and then combine them again at a later date?

Bees from a Q- colony would detect pheromones of queen and wouldn't draw cells. Any eggs in either hive?