Is it too late create an artificial swarm?

[darren64]

I just did an inspection and I removed 6 queen cells,4 had a white sticky fluid in them(I take to be royal jelly)there were grubs in at least 2,I have been advised that it is too late in the year to split the hive.

 

[Silly Bee]

I just did an inspection and I removed 6 queen cells,4 had a white sticky fluid in them(I take to be royal jelly)there were grubs in at least 2,I have been advised that it is too late in the year to split the hive.

I hate destroying queen cells, Try and make a colony out of them.

 

[MuswellMetro]

I hate destroying queen cells, Try and make a colony out of them.

might survive in poly Nuc

 

[Silly Bee]

queen cell, a few fliers, a few house bees, move them away from the parent hive, if the weather stays good, it might work, be an interesting experiment for him

 

[Midland Beek]

No. Certainly not too late. The season is longer nowadays thanks to balsam and knotweed.

 

[oliver90owner]

I removed 6 queen cells,

What did you do to suppress the swarming instinct? 'Nothing' is the short answer?

If you inspect in one week you may be too late; they may have gone!

If not this time, then next. They will eventually build a Q/C around a 3 day old larva and be gone before you next inspection. BTDT.

You need to artificially swarm the hive and satisfy that swarming instinct. I am assuming here that the cells were swarm cells by their number.

If the colony was cramped you might get away with giving more space - again you give no details to work on.

You don't tell us how strong the colony is either. A split of some sort might be dependent on the current strength - if on double brood there should be absolutely no problem, if just a single brood with no supers it should still be OK with careful observation re wasps.

But you do need to do more than break down queen cells. Temporary splitting (A/S) and later reuniting - possibly with the young queen (if she proves to be good) would be one option. Just doing nothing is tantamount to asking for trouble.

Regards, RAB

 

[darren64]

I removed 6 queen cells,

What did you do to suppress the swarming instinct? 'Nothing' is the short answer?

If you inspect in one week you may be too late; they may have gone!

If not this time, then next. They will eventually build a Q/C around a 3 day old larva and be gone before you next inspection. BTDT.

You need to artificially swarm the hive and satisfy that swarming instinct. I am assuming here that the cells were swarm cells by their number.

If the colony was cramped you might get away with giving more space - again you give no details to work on.

You don't tell us how strong the colony is either. A split of some sort might be dependent on the current strength - if on double brood there should be absolutely no problem, if just a single brood with no supers it should still be OK with careful observation re wasps.

But you do need to do more than break down queen cells. Temporary splitting (A/S) and later reuniting - possibly with the young queen (if she proves to be good) would be one option. Just doing nothing is tantamount to asking for trouble.

Regards, RAB

I would say the colony is strong,(they seem to be bulging out of the entance after dark)they're in one brood box and there is quite a bit of honey in it as well,I have got 2 supers on,the first I put on a 3 weeks ago I left it for a week without the queen exluder and they 3/4 filled it,with some eggs as well so I put the Queen excluder on and another super,but that has slowed them drawing comb and taking the honey up,there are a few wasps hanging about round the hive,my queen is marked red so she is not a young queen but she is still a prolific egg layer.

 

[Silly Bee]

I would say the colony is strong,(they seem to be bulging out of the entance after dark)they're in one brood box and there is quite a bit of honey in it as well,I have got 2 supers on,the first I put on a 3 weeks ago I left it for a week without the queen exluder and they 3/4 filled it,with some eggs as well so I put the Queen excluder on and another super,but that has slowed them drawing comb and taking the honey up,there are a few wasps hanging about round the hive,my queen is marked red so she is not a young queen but she is still a prolific egg layer.

I think they will swarm first chance they get. As someone said, you haven't done anything about the swarm instinct.

Find the queen, and move her with a few brood and fliers and rehive her.

Let them have another queen.

(IMO)

 

[Polyanwood]

Depends what you mean by too late doesn't it? If you live somewhere where is is rainy and cold and you are worrying that your queenless part of the split won't produce a viable mated queen, you might be too late. Or if you are worried that neither colony will ever get to a good enough size to make it through Winter... you might be too late, depending on how big the colony is..

but if those are your worries... they are small worries aren't they because you can just recombine before Winter.

 

[darren64]

I have just done another inspection tonight and the queen was still there,there were 7 more queen cells with royal jelly and I could see grubs in some of them,I have done an A S and marked the frames with cells on with a drawing pin,I have reduced the hive entance to the old hive with the Q C's in,there is plenty of honey and pollen as well,just remembered as I'm writing this that there was a Q C on the frame with the old queen on when I moved it into the new hiveI'll remove it tommorrow,thanks for the advice,I would have probably lost my bees without it,cheers

 

[gandalfwhitewizard]

Darren When you take a look tomorrow in the Q+ colony check each and every frame even if it means blowing some of the bees out of the way to ensure they have no queen cells including the one you know about.
I would then select 2 good Q/C's in your A/S and knock the rest down otherwise you could lead them to swarm IMO. But as Polyanwood says you have nothing to loose if it doesnt work out for some reason unite later better than losing the whole lot!

 

[darren64]

Darren When you take a look tomorrow in the Q+ colony check each and every frame even if it means blowing some of the bees out of the way to ensure they have no queen cells including the one you know about.
I would then select 2 good Q/C's in your A/S and knock the rest down otherwise you could lead them to swarm IMO. But as Polyanwood says you have nothing to loose if it doesnt work out for some reason unite later better than losing the whole lot!

I only put 2 frames in the new hive(1 with the queen on and 1 with plenty of pollen)I thought about leaving the new colony a few days so I knew which definately had larvae in before I destroyed any