Imminent Swarm - what can I do urgently?

[Twin4Me]

I have a hive of very productive bees, they wintered well and I have a Brood box and a half on the hive which was on all Winter, plus a super which is pretty full of honey (and nectar).
The bees have been active as soon as the weather warmed up and the boxes were full with brood.

I inspected on 12 April and although the hive was full they still had some space to lay in both the Brood and half box, probably about 4 full frames and 4 half frames left. I did an inspection today and the hive has at least 12-15 capped Queen cells, most in the top half box. There are still lava present and a fair amount of drone brood and a few drones, I couldn't see any eggs but I'm rubbish at spotting them. The super has 8 frames of capped honey and the remainder is nectar and is almost full.
Despite looking really carefully I still haven't found the Queen

I'm going away on holiday for three weeks in 10 days so the likelihood is the garden will be full of swarming bees!

HELP - so is there anything I can do to try and alleviate the problem?

I have another hive of sulking bees, who are not very productive and only have about 2 frames of brood and almost no stores.
I have a new Hive and spare brood box (and supers)
I also have a polystyrene Nuc box.
I could potentially take a hive to another site about 3 miles away where I could house a hive (in an orchard).

Can I have some options of the best course of action (urgently) please?
If anyone is in the Reigate area and could help it would be much appreciated (see my beginners thread re: floundering)

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I think they have already swarmed. Best you can do now is reduce the QC's to one open cell, mark the frame where it is, then go back in in a week and tear down any more QCs they've made (once you've confirmed your marked cell is still there) then just go on holidays, relax and forget about them - all they need now is peace for the new queen to emerge and get mated

 

[Twin4Me]

Thanks, I did wonder that. The weather has been pretty cold for the last week or so, if they have swarmed then she couldn't have taken that many bees as it still feels fairly full. From memory at most maybe a quarter less from the last inspection and there are still loads of stores.

I'm going to have another inspection later today to see if I can see her.

Should I removed a lot of the capped stores in the super to create more space as well?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

if they have swarmed then she couldn't have taken that many bees as it still feels fairly full.

It's an illusion that fools many

Should I removed a lot of the capped stores in the super to create more space as well?

I'd leave well alone for now - your workforce is well depleted and there's not much forage at the moment, and if this cold period continues, they will need stores

 

[Parsonage Bees]

My go-to is Wally Shaw "There are queen cells in my Hive - what should I do?" in the Welsh BKA library.

If the last inspection was 2 weeks ago and they started QCs soon after you could have queens emerging any time. Look at the ones you pinch out to see how old they are.

If you do find the queen put her on the frame in the nuc. Remove all the QCs on that frame and add another frame of brood and a couple of stores. +frame of foundation.
I'm thinking this is the quickest thing you can do in these temperatures.

Don't worry about stores or space but you have to reduce the number of QCs.

 

[ericbeaumont]

have another inspection later today to see if I can see her.

See eggs, you mean. Queen has most likely gone.

Follow JBM's advice: reduce to one open QC, shake bees off all other combs and remove anything looking like a QC. Repeat 7 days later.

removed a lot of the capped stores in the super to create more space as well?

Too late, because much of the foraging force has gone.

Had you given another BB and a couple more supers about 3 weeks ago, the swarm may not have occurred. Brood+half will never be sufficient for a decent colony, so give up on the half, and when such expansion occurs again, double or triple the BBs.

 

[Twin4Me]

Thanks for the advice, I struggle slightly with the two brood boxes when inspecting the hive or looking for the queen but I’ll give this a go.

Should you reduce to a single brood box in the winter? I’m never sure when to do this.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Thanks for the advice, I struggle slightly with the two brood boxes when inspecting the hive or looking for the queen but I’ll give this a go.

Should you reduce to a single brood box in the winter? I’m never sure when to do this.

There are commercial beeks who overwinter on single National standard BB. They usually need to feed fondant in the new year.
I'm not a commercial beekeeper. I overwinter with brood and a half and I don't worry about feeding. Normally. But I have super frames that have been on during treatments so they can't be extracted. But as a hobbyist I can handle that.
Everyone keeps bees differently in some way that works for them. You don't need to worry about that atm.

Back to the original post. It's good that you didn't dive into doing an artificial swarm the way I did first time. I found QCs, started moving frames into another brood box, couldn't find the queen, couldn't remember how exactly to do things and tried to put everything back. It was chaos.
Better to close everything up. Come back later with a plan. After a bit of thought and research.

Good luck . . .. Ben

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

There are commercial beeks who overwinter on single National standard BB. They usually need to feed fondant in the new year.

never found that to be the case

 

[ericbeaumont]

Should you reduce to a single brood box in the winter? I’m never sure when to do this.

Rough guide is to over-box in the first half of the season up to about the Summer Solstice.

At about this time the main flow kicks in and bees forget about expansion & replication in favour of consolidation - to bring in a big harvest to get them through winter.

At the Solstice bees recognise the incremental shortening of day length and begin to contract slowly; for this reason under-boxing is a better option, provided super space is given for storage.

By over and under I mean more boxes and fewer boxes.

Towards the end of summer you will look to match colony size to box size & number for winter. Bear in mind that bees over-winter far better when they're rammed in wall-to-wall, which will give good access to stores and enable efficient thermo-regulation.

By all means over-winter them on a single BB, BB+a half, or DBB, and if a single BB is too much room, put them in a 6-frame polynuc.

In essence, the colony must squeeze into the box, and as that assessment will be variable, the conclusion is that there is no should about any of this.

 

[drex]

I over winter on double BB, with clear crown boards. The bees are always up the top where the warmer air is, not because they are short of stores, as there is always plenty ( I do not feed in autumn). They cannot reduce the size of a tree cavity.
However, if a colony is weak going into winter I would reduce box size

 

[Eyeman]

Queen may still be in the hive if she was clipped.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Queen may still be in the hive if she was clipped.

if she managed to get back to the hive after crashing and burning during the swarm

 

[Parsonage Bees]

never found that to be the case

I'm thinking of commercial bee keepers I follow on Twitter. Perhaps the difference is needing to push the colonies early to get a spring crop.
I find mine have eaten their way up into the super by first inspection in April. Tho' I don't feed heavily in the autumn to pack the BB.

 

[Twin4Me]

Huge thanks to @Mint Bee for popping in this morning and helping me.

We inspected the hive as others suggested there was no sign of the queen. There were still plenty of bees so still not positive she had swarmed, unless it was with a small number of bees. There were very young leaves but no sign of eggs. We removed all but one of the capped queen cells (they were at stage 11-12 with one at about 15 in the pictures above).

We left one well protected queen cells, there was drone brood and drones as well in the hive.

We also added another super and then closed up the hive.

The plan is to leave it alone now until I’m back from holiday towards the end of May and then check for the new queen. If she’s not there then I’ll buy a new one (and possibly one to replace the queen in my other hive).

Thanks so much for all the advice and support and I look forward to asking you lots more questions!

 

[Mint Bee]

no problem @Twin4Me. Nice to meet you. very well behaved bees considering it was not much more than 10C and overcast. Odd thing was that even though they in the middle of swarm preparation, there was a collection of dead drones outside the hive

 

[ericbeaumont]

another hive of sulking bees, who are not very productive and only have about 2 frames of brood and almost no stores

Did you check this colony, Mint Bee? Either the Q is poor, the colony was retarded by struggling with far too much space, or there is underlying disease.

Assuming for the moment that disease is not the cause, was it put into the nuc box?

dead drones outside the hive

Could be damaged by varroa, or a survival tactic if stores low.

 

[Twin4Me]

I think the other hive just has a not very productive queen. I will probably look at replacing her when I get back from holidays the colony hasn’t grown. It was a swarm I was given by a friend last year.

 

[ericbeaumont]

colony hasn’t grown

Yes, sometimes the queen hasn"t mated well enough or has poor genetics, but any small colony in a big box will struggle.

It may turn around if you downsize it and feed syrup. If it has the ability to cover another frame of sealed brood, you could donate one every few weeks.

If it's still a dud, you could re-queen when you return from holiday, using a frame of good stock from your other colony, rather than spend on a new queen.

 

[Twin4Me]

Despite not finding the queen with Mint bee on Saturday on Monday afternoon it appears the bees swarmed. The roofer next door got quite a shock apparently. Sadly my neighbour didn’t say anything until yesterday so it was too late to track them down. They were last seen heading for the common.

I’d put a message on Facebook and was told about a local swarm. I collected them but then one of the house owners told me they were from a colony living in their chimney for the last 20 years and they usually swarmed a couple of times a year.

I’ve put them into a new hive and will see how they are doing when I return but might end up re-queening all the hives.