Making increase?

[macow]

Hi,
I have been given advice that i am not sure about and would appreciate any advice as i will have to do somethig very soon.
Ok, having done an inspection yesterday i found what i belived to be several queen cups and a partially formed queen cell with pupa. The hive is on brood and a half and these were all located on the bottom of the half brood with none on the full brood. In seperating the half brood from the frames below their was some damage to the (poss) queen cell so i cant be completly sure if it is a q/cell or drone. I belive it is a q/cell/cups but this may be due to stretching when seperating the two brood areas.
Anyway, the advice that i was given was to make up a nuc using the existing queen (which is a very good queen and laying well) leave the main colony for a week by which time they will have created queen cells (either the ones that were there or emergency ones) and then to use these q/cells to make increase with the aim of making up one other nuc and keeping the rest of the main colony as is.

Questions are:
If in a weeks time the q/cells made by the main colony are emergency q/cells will they produce good queens? (there plenty of new eggs present so age should not be an issue)
Will the main colony produce any honey his year if this is done. (Currently 6-7frames of brood in the deep box and 7 frames in the shallow- the rest being stores)
Is this a reasonable method of dealing with this situation - not being one that i have read about anywhere.
Are there any better methods bearing in mind the fact that i think there are Q/cups/cell present but cannot be sure.

My main concerns are that i retain the current queen as i would like to make increase from her and that any further increase is done in a manner to maximise the chances of producing viable colonys with good queens.

If this is a viable way of making increase it would appear to be deceptivly simple - confused!!
Any advice really welcome

Thanks

 

[Finman]

.
It seems that the colony is going to swarm.

To avoid swarm escaping, first make a flying false swarm.

Move hive 10 feets.
Put on old site a new hive and there one brood frame and the queen. Bee fly there by themselves during couple of days.

In old part they rear queen cells. You may take daugters from it when you put queen cells into cage.

Feed the queen hive if they do not get enough food from nature.

 

[macow]

Thanks Finman,
The only concern that i have is if the flying bees go back to the queen in the new broodbox will there be enough bees in the old broodbox (Brood and a half) to look after the brood in there?

Mark

 

[BKF Admin]

Young House bees will not desert the brood.

 

[Finman]

.
This is old system and devide the colony in practical way.

 

[Heather]

Are you sure they were queen cells (about 1-2 " pendulous -and not just practice cups-like acorn cups)?? Most hives have one or two of those.
The acorn cups don't necessarily mean they are in swarm mode, so I have been told (she says, hedging her bets)
Heather

 

[macow]

Yes, fairly sure that there was at least one q/cell.

 

[Poly Hive]

Fairly sure?

Ok. You are really sayinhg you want your cake and to eat it too in that you want to make increase and you also want honey?

Let's assume that you are reading the situation correctly and there was a Queen cell. Now to me if the colony is thinking of swarming then there would have be a fair number of these cells not just one. By fair I mean 10 or more.

You could deal with this in several ways, all of which in their own way are correct.

You could take off the super of brood and put it on a stand and let them raise a queen. You could then take of a nuc from the parent stock and or do as Finman suggests and do a full blooded AS.

I "hae ma doots" you have a swarmy colony myself. I would wait five days and go and have another look. Then decide what your priority is. Increase or honey?

PH

 

[macow]

Hi Ph,
No i dont think that what i am saying is that i want my cake and eat it. In fact i think that i said exactly the opposite.

"My main concerns are that i retain the current queen as i would like to make increase from her and that any further increase is done in a manner to maximise the chances of producing viable colonys with good queens."

However what i was asking was if there was any chance that the main hive would produce any honey as being fairly new to this malarky i have done the building up nucs bit =no honey and now i would like to increase the amount of colonys so that i dont end up with zero bees.
I suppose that having only the one colony makes me feel a bit nervous especially as i lost one over the winter. I would like to get into the position where i could offer nucs to other newbees as there does seem to be a lack of them in this area. It is very difficult in these times for people that are new to beekeeping, and do not have a lot of contacts in the beekeeping world, to obtain good nucs at reasonable prices.(or sometimes any price at all!!)
I have advertised on this and the "other place" for a nuc to buy but with no sucess.

I am not doing this as a paying concern just for the pleasure. And i am trying to learn whats best for the bees. However, as i am sure that you are aware there is a lot of conflicting advice. It would however be nice to have some honey for my own consumption out of all the effort as i do actually like honey. I suppose that what i was asking was do i have to go for another year without producing my own honey to enjoy. If i do, so be it !!

So PH, hop off the soapbox and try answering the questions, eh!

All Regards
Marc

 

[Poly Hive]

I did and am on no soap box. If you don't care for my advice try a conflicting one.

Let's assume that you are reading the situation correctly and there was a Queen cell. Now to me if the colony is thinking of swarming then there would have be a fair number of these cells not just one. By fair I mean 10 or more.

You could deal with this in several ways, all of which in their own way are correct.

You could take off the super of brood and put it on a stand and let them raise a queen. You could then take of a nuc from the parent stock and or do as Finman suggests and do a full blooded AS.

I "hae ma doots" you have a swarmy colony myself. I would wait five days and go and have another look. Then decide what your priority is. Increase or honey?

PH
__________________
"Bees do nothing invariably."


It bears mentioning again that a queen cup is NOT an indicator of the intention to swarm. Nor is an egg in a cup a positive as the queens often lay in them on the way past.

I am deeply suspicious of this reported one cell as if there was but one it's not common.

I repeat my advice, give it five days and check again.

 

[macow]

Sorry PH
I am possibly known for being a bit too blunt and occasionally over opinionated.
Thank you for repeating your advice.

Regards
Marc

 

[BKF Admin]

Nice one Marc