Haynes Manual AS question

[RogerJ]

I've just done my first AS - I couldn't find the queen to begin with so I used the method in the Haynes Manual for swarm control without finding queen (although I did subsequently spot her during the "dumping" process). I have two questions:

1) The manual suggest that when you remove the top brood box after 24 hours that it is placed at 90deg. to the original. Is this necessary or is it just that it should be a metre plus away and facing a different direction - but not as much as 90deg.?
2) I found one what appeared to be sealed queen cell (must have missed it a week ago when I did an inspection) and also what looked like an unsealed QC with a larvae in the bottom. If I have misjudged what is going on and one of these QCs don't deliver what is the next step? Is it best to buy in a queen rather than relying on the bees to produce one?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Vortex]

Okay .. I don't have the Haynes manual handy so I'm going to have to make an educated guess at what you did .. but I'm going to deal with your questions in reverse order ..

The presence of a queen cell (sealed) and a charged cell (uncapped) indicates that the colony was preparing to swarm .. so some form of artificial swarm is required.

I'll come back after answering question 1 :-

I'm assuming that the manual says .. move existing BB aside .. place new BB onto original floor, shake all bees from frames in existing BB into new BB, place Q Excluder, place original BB on top .. leave for 24 hours..

You should at that point have the original Queen and most of the adult bees in the lower box, and all of the brood and nurse bees in the top box ...

You then move the top BB to a new location.. The facing change is to augment the enforcement of any flying bees left in the BB moved to return to the original site and those that have just started "orientation" flights to re-orientate correctly.
If you can't turn the box by 90 deg then don't worry ..

So at this point you should have the old queen plus all the flying bees on the old site on new foundation, which makes them think they've swarmed, and all the brood plus any queen cells in the new location..

So if your queen cells are in the box of brood on the new location then the bees should successfully raise a new queen and both colonies should be okay.

 

[Poly Hive]

Please spell out what you did as for me Haynes is for cars not bees.

Also what is your ambition with this situation. Do you want and have the kit to run two colonies?

PH

 

[RogerJ]

Thanks Vortex - that's exactly what I did.

And yes Poly Hive the intention was to give myself an extra colony at the same time as, hopefully, preventing a swarm.

So to return to my second question - if for some reason the QCs don't "work" what is the best approach?

 

[Poly Hive]

No idea as you have not told us what you did. Haynes is not a "common" bee book.

PH

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Haynes is not a "common" bee book.

PH

Isn't it?

 

[REDWOOD]

Probably one of the most popular beginners beekeeping books today, well around here anyway


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[BeeJayBee]

Probably one of the most popular beginners beekeeping books today, well around here anyway

 

[Brigsy]

It's the one I've been pointed towards.

 

[MuswellMetro]

haynes manual is a standard pagden or pagden without finding the queen (by first separating the queen from the brood by shaking bees into a new box with empy brood frames above)

some books say move old brood box greater than three feet away and some say move three feet away and turn through 90 degrees

the 90 degree turn is a belt and braces approach as the foragers are less likley to find the smelly old brood box and more readily go to the queen in the new foreign smelling new box

 

[MuswellMetro]

Are you sure it is not the solvent in the tipp-ex, knocking her out, it is a benzine like solvent i think

 

[Vortex]

Thanks Vortex - that's exactly what I did.

And yes Poly Hive the intention was to give myself an extra colony at the same time as, hopefully, preventing a swarm.

So to return to my second question - if for some reason the QCs don't "work" what is the best approach?

Transfer a frame of eggs from the "original" hive to the AS.. they'll pull new QC's and hopefully the colony will go queen right.

Most of the time an AS or split works without issue. Sometimes it doesn't, and if you have a very bad year, as I did with 1 colony last year, the colony fails.

That particular colony was split at the point they swarmed into effectively 2 5 frame nucs.. one took without problems, but the other, which was the original colony, didn't.
I then gave it additional frames of eggs 3 times, each 4 weeks apart. Each time they pulled QC, the QC hatched, and every time the Queen failed - whether on her mating flight or not I have no idea.

 

[bob-russell]

Haynes is the standard 'course book' for New Forest & District BKA beginners course. Just completed the theory sessions. Great book, simple, concise and comprehensible!

 

[Poly Hive]

Thank you MM.

So Hooper is no longer the suggested tome?

I would trust in your queen cells and wait a month then check to see if there are eggs. If you can find your queen then pop her in a nuc and let them raise a new queen too. When you have your two units you can either keep the nuc over winter as an insurance or re-queen it or use it to strengthen up one of the colonies for winter.

PH

 

[RogerJ]

Thanks again for the help.

One last question (until the next time...) do I need to feed the hive with the queen cells with syrup at all until it is "fully functional"?

 

[Bob D.]

Haynes is the standard 'course book' for New Forest & District BKA beginners course.

Ditto for Basingstoke & District BKA.

Other books are availabe and it's worth having several in my opinon so you can compare different methods and various tweaks.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Thanks again for the help.

One last question (until the next time...) do I need to feed the hive with the queen cells with syrup at all until it is "fully functional"?

depends how much stores they have and how long it takes them to send foragers out again - I haven't in the past.