Is there a clever way to avoid cast swarms

[Boston Bees]

Having found charged queen cells, and nuc'd the queen off into another box, I am left with the usual task of going back in and cutting back all queen cells except one.

I always hate doing this.

Is there a clever way of leaving all the cells intact, but avoiding a cast swarm?

I know when the initial queen cells will emerge (to within a few days), though clearly they will probably build some emergency cells now too. I am wondering what would happen if I waited until just before the first cells must be about to emerge, and then moved the hive to another stand, replacing it with a box with nothing but some stores in. This would mean that when the first queen emerged, she would find zero foragers in the hive. Would she still try to lead a cast swarm, do you think? If not, presumably she would go around and kill the other prospective queens, and get on with the job of getting mated?

I would clearly have to do something with the box of now-queenless foragers on the original location, but that's a manageable issue.

Anyone done anything like this?

Any other ways of doing this?

PS: I have several hives, of varying strengths, so could switch positions if this was of some benefit.

 

[Newbeeneil]

You could put one of the cells in the box with the foragers. That would keep them happy until you reunite them.

 

[jeff33]

You can split with queen and brood in 1 half and flyers and a frame of bias in the other (I use a vertical split for this). After 8-10 days remove the frame of bias which will have lots of EQcs and repeat the process with a new frame. After a further 8-10 days reunite the lot or just the original queen in between 2 frames of brood and let the other half with the younger bees raise their own.

 

[pargyle]

Having found charged queen cells, and nuc'd the queen off into another box, I am left with the usual task of going back in and cutting back all queen cells except one.

I always hate doing this.

Is there a clever way of leaving all the cells intact, but avoiding a cast swarm?

I know when the initial queen cells will emerge (to within a few days), though clearly they will probably build some emergency cells now too. I am wondering what would happen if I waited until just before the first cells must be about to emerge, and then moved the hive to another stand, replacing it with a box with nothing but some stores in. This would mean that when the first queen emerged, she would find zero foragers in the hive. Would she still try to lead a cast swarm, do you think? If not, presumably she would go around and kill the other prospective queens, and get on with the job of getting mated?

I would clearly have to do something with the box of now-queenless foragers on the original location, but that's a manageable issue.

Anyone done anything like this?

Any other ways of doing this?

PS: I have several hives, of varying strengths, so could switch positions if this was of some benefit.

Make some mini-hives or buy a few apideas .. cut the section of comb with the queen cellsout that you want to keep and tie it into the apidea frame with some stores and a cupful of bees ... what you do after that ? Depends if they get mated but you could have some spare queens for sale or build them up into a Nuc or six ?

 

[Finman]

Make some mini-hives or buy a few apideas .. cut the section of comb with the queen cellsout that you want to keep and tie it into the apidea frame with some stores and a cupful of bees ... what you do after that ? Depends if they get mated but you could have some spare queens for sale or build them up into a Nuc or six ?

New queens from swarming hive. Is there any selecting demand except swarming?What to then other swarmimg hives and their casts?

 

[Bazzer]

Having found charged queen cells, and nuc'd the queen off into another box, I am left with the usual task of going back in and cutting back all queen cells except one.

I always hate doing this.

Is there a clever way of leaving all the cells intact, but avoiding a cast swarm?

I know when the initial queen cells will emerge (to within a few days), though clearly they will probably build some emergency cells now too. I am wondering what would happen if I waited until just before the first cells must be about to emerge, and then moved the hive to another stand, replacing it with a box with nothing but some stores in. This would mean that when the first queen emerged, she would find zero foragers in the hive. Would she still try to lead a cast swarm, do you think? If not, presumably she would go around and kill the other prospective queens, and get on with the job of getting mated?

I would clearly have to do something with the box of now-queenless foragers on the original location, but that's a manageable issue.

Anyone done anything like this?

Any other ways of doing this?

PS: I have several hives, of varying strengths, so could switch positions if this was of some benefit.

Need four factors for a swarm, Queen, queen cells, excess foragers and under employed nurse bees. If you separate most of the foragers from the queen cells the remaining nurse bees will typically tear all but one down. Simplest solution would be to swap positions of hive brood chamber and queen nuc - could put frames from nuc with queen in a new brood box with supers above . Both colonies then only have 2 of the factors. I know this works because I have made the mistake of trying to harvest QC from such a colony and finding they are gone.

 

[pargyle]

New queens from swarming hive. Is there any selecting demand except swarming?What to then other swarmimg hives and their casts?

Depends on whether they are a swarmy colony and which other traits are in evdience in the colony. as the queens are going to be open mated it's a lottery anyway.

 

[Wilco]

Make some mini-hives or buy a few apideas .. cut the section of comb with the queen cellsout that you want to keep and tie it into the apidea frame with some stores and a cupful of bees ... what you do after that ? Depends if they get mated but you could have some spare queens for sale or build them up into a Nuc or six ?

Although this invariably leads to killing a number of worker larvae for each cut out queen cell... Unless @Boston Bees is happy to discriminate based on class?

 

[Finman]

Depends on whether they are a swarmy colony and which other traits are in evdience in the colony. as the queens are going to be open mated it's a lottery anyway.

That open mating is true.

There was a time period about 10 years ago, when I tried to continue with swarming queens. That ended to catastrophe.

There is a big difference with hives, which try to swarm in May, in June or in July.

My best year is 120% swarming. Even some swarms swarmed later in summer.

 

[pargyle]

Although this invariably leads to killing a number of worker larvae for each cut out queen cell... Unless @Boston Bees is happy to discriminate based on class?

With care it does not need to be many brood being destroyed by cutting out ... a small sacrifice for the common good perhaps ?

 

[Wilco]

With care it does not need to be many brood being destroyed by cutting out ... a small sacrifice for the common good perhaps ?

I was equating all lives as equal for the sake of being argumentative! Although personally I do feel bad about killing worker brood as well as queen larvae.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Need four factors for a swarm, Queen, queen cells, excess foragers and under employed nurse bees. If you separate most of the foragers from the queen cells the remaining nurse bees will typically tear all but one down. Simplest solution would be to swap positions of hive brood chamber and queen nuc - could put frames from nuc with queen in a new brood box with supers above . Both colonies then only have 2 of the factors. I know this works because I have made the mistake of trying to harvest QC from such a colony and finding they are gone.

If you do a pagden that’s essentially what you do but I always reduced queen cells in the brood.

 

[mbc]

Having found charged queen cells, and nuc'd the queen off into another box, I am left with the usual task of going back in and cutting back all queen cells except one.

I always hate doing this.

Is there a clever way of leaving all the cells intact, but avoiding a cast swarm?

I know when the initial queen cells will emerge (to within a few days), though clearly they will probably build some emergency cells now too. I am wondering what would happen if I waited until just before the first cells must be about to emerge, and then moved the hive to another stand, replacing it with a box with nothing but some stores in. This would mean that when the first queen emerged, she would find zero foragers in the hive. Would she still try to lead a cast swarm, do you think? If not, presumably she would go around and kill the other prospective queens, and get on with the job of getting mated?

I would clearly have to do something with the box of now-queenless foragers on the original location, but that's a manageable issue.

Anyone done anything like this?

Any other ways of doing this?

PS: I have several hives, of varying strengths, so could switch positions if this was of some benefit.

Wait until the queens are ripe then pull them, colonies will only throw casts if there are sealed queen cells left, so just pull any which are mature enough to fight it out and destroy the rest.