Illo
House Bee
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2011
- Messages
- 167
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Cheshire
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 20
I have had three artificial swarms fail so far this season, and am not sure exactly why. Was hoping for some enlightenment. Here's the method, and the recurring problem...
(Long query follows, so please bear with...)
My beekeeping mentor advocates a demaree-style AS which splits a colony already developing queen cells vertically, in such a way as to permit easy consolidation if you don't want to make increase.
The method is as follows
Day 1. Using additional components as necessary, from the bottom up, build the hive thus:
Floor;
New brood box containing frames of foundation and one central frame of brood and the existing, laying queen. No queen cells;
Queen excluder;
Couple of supers, or add 1 super to those already in use;
Modified crown board, feed/escape holes open, rear-facing entrance on the upper side, closed in the first instance;
Old brood box containing all brood; one QC
Crown board;
Roof
With transit allowed between top and bottom, flying bees migrate to bottom box, nurse bees remain in top BB with brood.
On day 3 open rear door. Place mesh panels over feed/escape holes. Newly emerging brood and emerging queen will orient to the rear door. Bees now confined to either top or bottom, with no transit between the two, but can communicate through the mesh. Ensure no QC in bottom box and only 1 unsealed cell in the top.
Thereafter; allow new queen to develop in top box. Once mated, either split top and bottom, or choose one queen and consolidate back down to one colony.
The aim is that the existing laying queen with flying bees in the bottom box are as if swarmed.
With only one exception when I have tried this, the split colony has swarmed from the bottom box. The first time this happened, I assumed that because of an oncoming cold snap, the bees were unable to draw the foundation and HM ran out of laying space, and was off.
Tried again this year. Similar happened, even when I added drawn comb to provide instant laying space in the bottom box, and the temperatures have been warm throughout. So today I watched my best queen disappear over the trees in a cloud of bees, never to be seen again. There are not QCs in the bottom box, they just fail to draw comb well at all, and then leave.
I feel the method is fundamentally flawed, but would value the thoughts of those more experienced. Does maintaining contact (and transfer of pheromone) between top and bottom boxes via the mesh panels mean that the bees in the bottom know of the existence of the QC in the top, and therefore fail to lose the swarming impulse?
I do have fairly swarmy stock, but this is just getting silly.
I'm maybe missing something, but I'm not sure what!
Thanks in advance!
LJ