Do queen traits or worker traits most affect swarminess?

[Polyanwood]

My NZ queens were introduced about 6 weeks ago. In the swarm today from one of NZ hives, most of the swarm were therefore the old bees - I only saw a handful of the golden ones in the cluster. They did have plenty of room, but I must have missed a queen cell.

Question is will it be the traits of the original bees that made them swarmy with not much reason, or the traits of the relatively new queen? What contribution do worker factors and queen factors respectively make to the swarminess of the colony?

 

[BKF Admin]

Did the queen have enough room to lay in the brood box or did the workers use empty cells for honey storage ?

 

[Polyanwood]

I thought there was plenty of room and certainly I ws putting on supers early. I think what is difficult to know is what is enough room? I found double brood box too difficult, but have now put in an order for a Jumbo Langstroth BB. Maybe that will allow a big enough brood nest?

It seems to me that for both the Italians and for these golden NZ (Italians) a single Langstroth BB is too small. Do you think I am imagining this?

 

[grizzly]

Ive got the same as you Polyanwood, my NZ bees are comfortable in their new home, plenty of space, but i am sure the Carnis that are hanging on are still drawing QC, the carnis were a split from a colony building QC.

I doubt its your new Queen and her offspring.

 

[Finman]

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I have handled swarminess here in some chain

 

[Polyanwood]

Yes, I remember you telling us not to breed from swarmy stock. That was the reason for my question. Is it as Grizzly suggests that it was the old bees that were swarmy and not the new queen and her newly emerging workers? The latter is what I want to believe.

 

[hedgerow pete]

never breed from a swarmy stock and never split a brood box that has started to produce queen cells, when they want qc then your to late you should of split it earlier,

i must say that i am starting to see a lot more swarmy stock being produced, i would if these new super productive bees are simple to quick to stay within our old stlye of hives when polyanwood says hes looking to use two langstroff brood boxs that is a space equivilant of 140,000 cells , where a normal hive say a national standard only has 58,000 cells, almost a third in size. it does make you wonder if instead of all these new super duper hives we should all go out and buy 200litre barrels instead. i think i had start to seriously look at brother adams super size dadant that used to have 100,000 cells, or is this not enough as well, how about a darlington long hive 7 foot long instead

 

[Crg]

I found double brood box too difficult, but have now put in an order for a Jumbo Langstroth BB. Maybe that will allow a big enough brood nest?

It seems to me that for both the Italians and for these golden NZ (Italians) a single Langstroth BB is too small. Do you think I am imagining this?

When I kept NZ italian queens (in NZ) I always kept them in a double brood box, which they tended to make almost full use of. Not sure how different they would be here in the UK but I suspect one brood box is a bit too small.

 

[Crg]

never breed from a swarmy stock and never split a brood box that has started to produce queen cells

I completely agree you should never breed from swarmy stock, but if you do split your brood box you can give them eggs from non swarmy stock to breed from. Not a perfect solution, but better than what a lot of people seem to do.

i think i had start to seriously look at brother adams super size dadant that used to have 100,000 cells, or is this not enough as well, how about a darlington long hive 7 foot long instead

In the UK I'm experimenting with 12 frame dadant/jumbo langstroth (buckfast dadant) to see how that works out. It has less cells than what I'm used to (double langstroth) but one brood box to look through makes a huge difference when you have a few hives. The downside is having to make them all by hand, and my wife finds the supers a little heavy.

 

[hedgerow pete]

i realy do think there is something in these new sronger breed of bees requiring more room than normal. i personal detest the double brood box idea, there is just so many down sides to it but so many people blunder on with its ideas. what you would be looking at for me personal would be a super sizes brood box with normal national supers on top, the question is whether you design something four foot long with supers as a layer over the top say three boxs wide and three supers high, very much like a darlington long hive idea or do you have a new type of brood frame 14 inchs wide and two foot long, whats your opinion crg