Is this a gamble or sensible - queen move.

[bjosephd]

So, I did an AS a week ago.

Original position: queen and flying bees, some brood, foundation

New position: house bees and brood (double brood).

The original position queen and flying bees - she is laying on the new foundation but charged queen cups keep popping up... I guess the flyers still are interested in swarming.

In the new position I have been knocking down all queen cells as I wanted to either breed from a different queen or introduce a different queen.

I am tired of knocking down queen cells in the original position, so I walked the queen back into the hive in the new position.

I understand bees will accept a laying queen if queen less, and particularly as she is 'their' queen anyway from a week ago.

I will let the flying hive produce from a frame of my choosing, or introduce a new queen in a week or so.

Have I potentially nailed it as far as putting off swarming in both halves? Or have I totally buggered it up and likely end up with swarms and dead queens?

And now there's bees at the bait hive... but probably just a coincidence!


Cheers!

BJD

 

[colinc]

sounds like that should work. Only issue you have is your nurse bees are with the queen now and the hive full of flying bees would need to raise your new queen if you add eggs. she may not be great if that happens.

maybe populate a nuc from your brood and queen hive and use that to requeen the flying hive if they manage to rear a queen?
or add 2-3 frames of good brood nurse bees and eggs

just a back up plan.


edited to correct autocorrected text

 

[Erichalfbee]

My only concern is that your double brood is still a big hive. You have given them only a few days brood break and the moment they have enough foragers i might worry that they will be off.

 

[bjosephd]

Hmmm... tricky. Would I have been better off leaving the queen where she was?

It kind of felt like a delayed wally style manoeuvre.

I kind of felt if leaving her with the brood side of the AS a la wally would have been good, then returning her to that box after a week would also be ok.

Who knows, maybe they'll kill her.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I doubt they will kill her

 

[jeff33]

I have done something similar today after another pagden failure (pagden on 3 hives, 2 still wanted to swarm and the other one no queen cells being raised.) I put the queen in the Q- half in a push in cage and transferred the nice capped Q cell in the other half.

 

[sherwood]

So, I did an AS a week ago.

Original position: queen and flying bees, some brood, foundation

New position: house bees and brood (double brood).

The original position queen and flying bees - she is laying on the new foundation but charged queen cups keep popping up... I guess the flyers still are interested in swarming.

In the new position I have been knocking down all queen cells as I wanted to either breed from a different queen or introduce a different queen.

I am tired of knocking down queen cells in the original position, so I walked the queen back into the hive in the new position and this too will start sprouting Q/cells.

I understand bees will accept a laying queen if queen less, and particularly as she is 'their' queen anyway from a week ago.

I will let the flying hive produce from a frame of my choosing, or introduce a new queen in a week or so.

Have I potentially nailed it as far as putting off swarming in both halves? Or have I totally buggered it up and likely end up with swarms and dead queens?

And now there's bees at the bait hive... but probably just a coincidence!


Cheers!

BJD

Have you considered that the old queens pheramones maybe depleted and putting up queen cells may have been the colonies way of protecting itself with a new queen. If you have moved the queen back to the larger hive there is the possibility that with being larger the lack of pheremones maybe execerbated and this hive may well start sprouting Q/cells.

 

[bjosephd]

Hmm... I do see the lack of nurse bees queen raising issue, but I am ordering in a new queen soon... so I will probably pop her in instead and abort and queen rearing... but hopefully queen rearing for now will keep any potential laying workers at bay.

 

[bjosephd]

Have you considered that the old queens pheramones maybe depleted and putting up queen cells may have been the colonies way of protecting itself with a new queen. If you have moved the queen back to the larger hive there is the possibility that with being larger the lack of pheremones maybe execerbated and this hive may well start sprouting Q/cells.

Indeed... I've considered rather a lot. Still not lost a swarm at least.... YET!

She os a 2016 queen and has been laying like the clappers... maybe she's burned out.

All I need to know, I guess, is how soon do I/how long do I leave it before checking the hive she is now in? And then what action to take with various potential discoveries.

 

[colinc]

As said somewhere above, the full double BB hive with queen is a big colony and at risk of making off. If she isn't clipped I would be checking in a week max weather permitting


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[jeff33]

But Finman will say big colony, big harvest. How do you keep a production hive together when double BB is not enough. Third BB early enough or split early and re-unite b4 main flow?

 

[Eyeman]

But Finman will say big colony, big harvest. How do you keep a production hive together when double BB is not enough. Third BB early enough or split early and re-unite b4 main flow?

You need to adapt your system to the fecundity of your queen. If she needs 3 brood boxes so be it.
Mine are local hybrids so a double brood is sufficient providing I don't allow the brood area to be clogged up with stores. To keep the stores out of the brood area:
1. Appropriate autumn preparation
2. Ensuring there is brood tight up against the queen excluder.
3. Any stores in the upper brood box are moved down to the lower box, under the brood.
4. Early and continuous supering, with empty supers going directly ontop of the QE.

 

[Etton]

You need to adapt your system to the fecundity of your queen. If she needs 3 brood boxes so be it.
Mine are local hybrids so a double brood is sufficient providing I don't allow the brood area to be clogged up with stores. To keep the stores out of the brood area:
1. Appropriate autumn preparation
2. Ensuring there is brood tight up against the queen excluder.
3. Any stores in the upper brood box are moved down to the lower box, under the brood.
4. Early and continuous supering, with empty supers going directly ontop of the QE.

If on brood and a half not possible to move the upper stores to bb, but could move it up into the super and give new foundation (or drawn comb) for Q to lay in. Is this something worth doing?

 

[Eyeman]

If on brood and a half not possible to move the upper stores to bb, but could move it up into the super and give new foundation (or drawn comb) for Q to lay in. Is this something worth doing?

Having drawn comb in the bottom brood box gives space for the queen to lay as she works her way down.
With your brood and half then moving the stores in the shallow above the QE in to the super sounds like a good idea. I don't mind extracting from comb that has has brood in but other may not like the idea.
If there is a flow on then there shouldn't be much trouble in getting them to draw out the foundation but it likely to get filled with stores if most of the brood is below in the deep box.
You could reverse the boxes if the shallow brood has mainly stores and give an extra super above the QE for them to store all that stores from the shallow.

 

[REDWOOD]

Remove queen into a nuc or BB and move it somewhere else in the apiary, keep knocking down QC's for 10 days to make certain there are no more open cells and then re-unit hives together with the usual air freshener or newspaper.

Make sure there are no QC's when reuniting otherwise the whole event is worthless

 

[bjosephd]

Remove queen into a nuc or BB and move it somewhere else in the apiary, keep knocking down QC's for 10 days to make certain there are no more open cells and then re-unit hives together with the usual air freshener or newspaper.



Make sure there are no QC's when reuniting otherwise the whole event is worthless

You mean the nuc and the double brood? Or the nuc, the double brood AND the original box of flying bees?! Teuiniying will surely then be a chaos of 3feet 3mile violation unless I drive all 3 boxes away!?

I am tempted to pull a nuc though with the queen in when I have a look later in the week.

 

[REDWOOD]

You mean the nuc and the double brood? Or the nuc, the double brood AND the original box of flying bees?! Teuiniying will surely then be a chaos of 3feet 3mile violation unless I drive all 3 boxes away!?

I am tempted to pull a nuc though with the queen in when I have a look later in the week.

Move the queen in a nuc or half the hive else where and when the flying bees leave the box with the queen they will return to their original hive. The nurse bees will stay with the queen and all the flying bees will be in a now queen less hive. So now the queen less hive will now begin to make emergency QCs. Knock them down every few days until there are no more which will take about 10 days maximum
You could then re unit or introduce a new queen. The permutations are endless


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[bjosephd]

UPDATE:

Checked the hive I walked the queen into. Found the queen, she's laying, a bit.

I found what looked like 3 sealed supercedure cells, I knocked two down and left one.

I then found what looked like, maybe, an emerged queen cell? Although it looked more chewed down rather than the lid flipped off. But who knows what I missed when I went through it post artificial swarm... maybe they are pre-queen return emergency cells.

Ergh... so potentially one sealed queen cell, one emerged virgin, and a kind of laying queen (laying may have slowed due to lack of stores/foragers - I may feed a little syrup)

But I think she burned herself out when she laid up those 14 frames of brood.

Any thoughts people? Stand back and hope for the best??

 

[colinc]

If the side is ripped out it is torn down. Emerged would be a neat opened cap.


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[bjosephd]

If the side is ripped out it is torn down. Emerged would be a neat opened cap.


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Definitely not side ripped out. Just the 'rim' of the end seemed more chewed down than I've seen before.

If it's an emerged virgin. And there's a laying queen in there. And another sealed queen cell (looking like supercedure or emergency) what might I do?

Or is the apparent leas than prolific laying suggesting she's gonna swarm? Seems like that's not the plan though.

Hmmmm...