First artificial swarm for me!

[merylvingien]

Popped the lid on one mine today, last inspection was last saturday.
3 frames in saw a queen cell with larvea in, thought oh **** lol

Next frame had a couple more with larvae too, thought oh **** ****!

So i have gone through the proceedure and hope i have got it right.

New stand 4-5 foot away with a new floor, placed old brood box on new stand.
I put a new open mesh floor on the old stand as i was on a solid floor before. Then new brood box with frames of foundation left a gap in middle.

Finally found queen in old box on the second go through and there were no queen cells on that frame so popped her in the new box on original site. Queen excluder back on and supers on top of new box original position.

Closed them up and new lid and crownboard on old box new position.

Hope i have done this correctly.

 

[thedeaddiplomat]

I might have popped in another frame of sealed/unsealed brood, too - just to keep her happy. And possibly also a frame of drawn brood foundation..

...but then, when I tried my first AS, I slipped up by deciding that a rather butch looking drone was the Queen - that colony took some time to get itself right, andthe original one swarmed anyway!

 

[the naked beekeeper]

Popped the lid on one mine today, last inspection was last saturday.
3 frames in saw a queen cell with larvea in, thought oh **** lol

Next frame had a couple more with larvae too, thought oh **** ****!

So i have gone through the proceedure and hope i have got it right.

New stand 4-5 foot away with a new floor, placed old brood box on new stand.
I put a new open mesh floor on the old stand as i was on a solid floor before. Then new brood box with frames of foundation left a gap in middle.

Finally found queen in old box on the second go through and there were no queen cells on that frame so popped her in the new box on original site. Queen excluder back on and supers on top of new box original position.

Closed them up and new lid and crownboard on old box new position.

Hope i have done this correctly.

How many QCs did you leave in the old box on new site??

 

[Mike a]

Sounds good Paul.

I agree with TDD and would of put in another drawn frame but as long as you didn't shake the bees out of the supers which will have mostly young bees they will draw out some of the new frames quickly for the queen to lay in.

 

[merylvingien]

I saw 5 cells none of which were capped.
But i was thinking of going back in a couple of days and pick the best couple of cells and destroy the rest.

Didnt shake the bees out of the supers so there is plenty of cheap labour on offer.

 

[KayJ]

Is it one or two queen cells you leave in the box. I'm a bit afraid of a cast swarm as thats what mine did last year. I've lost one colony to a swarm this year so I want to get it right if my second hive decides they're on the move to.