Hypothetical Academic Question

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SteeveeTee

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The scenario.
Beekeeper performs an AS, placing nurse bees and queen cell and BIAS with some foragers in a new hive (6 frames in all), which he places in another garden less than 3 miles away, but with grass, sticks etc to block entrance in the (improbable?!) hope that any foragers re-orientate.

Original hive with queen, filled with foundation and rest of the brood, left in original site. This discovered to be queenless, (no eggs) after four days, with queen cells, so assumption made that queen was squashed. Two queen cells left to be sealed so 3 cells for the two hives, just in case.

9 days after the AS, old queen found in the moved, new hive! (don't ask)

Q1. What effect will leaving the old queen with lots of nurse bees rather than foragers have on the growth of the colony and the honey crop?

Q2. What effect does leaving the queen cell with the foragers on the original site have on colony growth and honey crop?

Q3. Could one new queen be placed in a 3 frame nuc, the other left in the original hive, to enable a double brood/snelgrove board be put on the original hive and get a stronger colony during July/August?

I WASN'T TOO PROUD TO POST THIS!
 
Not even hypothetical as it would appear that an A/S was not performed, even.

Fairly dumb hypothetical beekeeper. Why change maybe eleven frames in a box when one was good enough? Or was this a nuc? Oh, not an A/S, so only hypothetically dumb because they had no idea of what they were doing?

Less than 3 miles, without knowing any details is about useless.

The assumption of a squashed queen is flawed (as are most assumptions by those that make them).

Q1 answer. Less foraging for up to three weeks?

Q2. Answer. Not a lot, they would likely cast. This assuming that an A/S had been sort of done in the first place. Which, of course it had not (see what I mean by assuming?). While an A/S (a proper one) would involve the transfer of bees from one box to another, it is 'flying bees' not just 'foragers' which are involved. Remember that - 'flying' bees.

Q3. Answer. Don't normally find two new queens in a hive - they usually scrap to death of one, or one leaves as a cast swarm.

What you do and how you arrange boxes later does not rely on any particular queen from a specific origin. Certainly two queens are likely able to lay more eggs than a single, but the expansion might rely on numbers of nurse bees and several other factors.

I think you need to construct a time line for the period in question and model your options. You might find it is fairly immaterial if your forage crops are inconvenient in timing, if indeed that is the proposed hypothetical reason for doing so.

Glad you were not too proud to post it. You must have been expecting possible critical comments. I trust you now have some truths to put to this hypothetical beekeeper, so that he or she can read up on Padgen for instance, or understand that random assumptions and manipulations are not necessarily helpful.

Yes fairly hypothetical. Did not happen, and if it did one wonders why this hypothetical beek did not simply follow the well tried and tested Padgen method for A/S. Please note that some answers would be wrong in practice; the question was flawed, for instance, or the real world example would be different - another problem of trying to answer impossible hypothetical questions that have no academic value, even.

A case of trying to re-invent the wheel? Many have tried and few have succeeded. Mag Lev might be one of them?

RAB
 
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Well alright it was me, but I think I did the pagden swarm -only in a bad order - the clipped queen had swarmed, I had collected the swarm from the front of the hive into a box and emptied it into the old hive, realise now that I did not make sure that the queen stayed there and whilst I sorted through other frames she must have got onto a frame of brood which I'd then put into the new hive. Less than 3 miles away was next door.

Will the flying bees in the old hive with the queen cell produce a cast swarm, or because I collected them after they swarmed, then put them into a hive with lots of foundation will they raise a new queen and then stay there?
 
The scenario.
Beekeeper performs an AS, placing nurse bees and queen cell and BIAS with some foragers in a new hive (6 frames in all), which he places in another garden less than 3 miles away, but with grass, sticks etc to block entrance in the (improbable?!) hope that any foragers re-orientate.

Original hive with queen, filled with foundation and rest of the brood, left in original site. This discovered to be queenless, (no eggs) after four days, with queen cells, so assumption made that queen was squashed. Two queen cells left to be sealed so 3 cells for the two hives, just in case.

9 days after the AS, old queen found in the moved, new hive! (don't ask)

Q1. What effect will leaving the old queen with lots of nurse bees rather than foragers have on the growth of the colony and the honey crop?

Q2. What effect does leaving the queen cell with the foragers on the original site have on colony growth and honey crop?

Q3. Could one new queen be placed in a 3 frame nuc, the other left in the original hive, to enable a double brood/snelgrove board be put on the original hive and get a stronger colony during July/August?

I WASN'T TOO PROUD TO POST THIS!

Hypothetically, it sounds like the beekeeper is taking an axe to this colony.

Taking a nuc full of bees, frames and a QC away from the 'mother' hive would not appease the swarming fever as the beekeeper will have left a half full hive, queen and flying bees (swarming instigators) at the original site. Luckily, it seems the beekeeper in question inadvertently transferred the queen into the nuc therefore he now has a small hive chock a block with brood, nurse bees and queen

eagerly awaiting next 'hypothetical nuc has swarmed' post, quickly followed - as two open QC's left in mother hive by the hypothetical 'my original hive has also swarmed' post.
As for growth and honey harvest - with all this b*ggering about, you'll probably end up with (at best) two strangely weakened hives.
Hypothetically speaking that is :D
 
I put the brood nurses and QC in a hive not a nuc, so hopefully will not be about to swarm, in fact the bees in this hive have torn down the queen cell that was in there so they seem happy with the old queen!

just read some other threads, these forums allow you to briefly enter other peoples worlds some are angry, some helpful, others tragic mess...
 
We write parent colony and A/Sed queen(new box), so the two are not mixed up. New hive and old hive in your case seem to be a about f.

So no A/S then? Well it most certainly was not according to Padgen! Whatever it was!

Technically, I doubt the clipped queen really swarmed. The bees would have swarmed but returned to the hive as there was no queen present. They likely clustered around the clipped queen while returning. So difficult to say, but probably they would go on emergence of another queen. Of course, that would likely be the clipped queen, so another swarming disaster!

But you have basically split the hive so all the queen cells may not reach maturity. The hive has been severely weakened wrt brood and the extra unused space.

Who knows what might happen in such a bizarre situation. I have certainly never tested that type of
scenario ever!

You are clearly in a potential mess. Remove the clipped queen to a nuc with a frame of brood and sufficient bees - she is your only laying queen at the current time!

Reduce queen cells to singles in each colony, if open, and two if they are all sealed. Or destroy all cells in the Q+ colony and leave the best open cell in the other. I would not transfer any closed cells from the Q+ part to the other half of the split as they may have been killed by the queen - probably not but can you take the risk?

Things would be sorted out in the next week or three hopefully and then you could re-organise your bees as appropriate.

Do plan your actions on a sheet of paper, so you can foresee any potential dead ends before they actually bounce you! Even I am getting a bit muddled as to what is where and why!

RAB
 
We write parent colony and A/Sed queen(new box), so the two are not mixed up. New hive and old hive in your case seem to be a about f.

So no A/S then? Well it most certainly was not according to Padgen! Whatever it was!

Technically, I doubt the clipped queen really swarmed. The bees would have swarmed but returned to the hive as there was no queen present. They likely clustered around the clipped queen while returning. So difficult to say, but probably they would go on emergence of another queen. Of course, that would likely be the clipped queen, so another swarming disaster!

But you have basically split the hive so all the queen cells may not reach maturity. The hive has been severely weakened wrt brood and the extra unused space.

Who knows what might happen in such a bizarre situation. I have certainly never tested that type of
scenario ever!

You are clearly in a potential mess. Remove the clipped queen to a nuc with a frame of brood and sufficient bees - she is your only laying queen at the current time!
OK, so this is the A/S that I did a week ago, in next doors garden, she is in there laying although I hadn't meant her to be but they seem best left
Reduce queen cells to singles in each colony, if open, and two if they are all sealed. Or destroy all cells in the Q+ colony and leave the best open cell in the other. There aren't any - a good sign.I would not transfer any closed cells from the Q+ part to the other half of the split as they may have been killed by the queen - probably not but can you take the risk?

Things would be sorted out in the next week or three hopefully and then you could re-organise your bees as appropriate.

Do plan your actions on a sheet of paper, so you can foresee any potential dead ends before they actually bounce you! Even I am getting a bit muddled as to what is where and why!
RAB

Thanks, the hive with all the flyers, no queen has two sealed cells, due to hatch on Saturday. Am I best to reduce these down to one now?
 
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I'm not going to comment / advise on any of your manipulations but instead comment on Honey crop / yield.
Depending on the forage / main crop in your vicinity you want a colony to reach it's peak (in terms of foragers) just as the flow starts.

I was taught by a local semi-pro beek that an AS gives you two small colonies = very little if any honey and that to build a large colony use a version of the demaree method for swarm prevention. I say prevention and not control as part of it requires judging when to demaree before they get the swarming instinct.

Anyway after a few years practice it definitely seems to work for me. I have just spent a long weekend extracting my biggest Spring crop so far.

The above as my views and the methods I chose to follow and are not necessarily suitable for everyone or every situation.
 
-I best to reduce these down to one now?

We need to think here. Why were two sealed cells left?

How would you know which one was duff?

Friday might be better. If you actually know when they were capped.
 
I left two in case they would be useful, both had larvae, both same age, both capped on Friday, I do only need one.
 

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