My bees swarmed but I'm not sure why

[GJUK]

Hello

My artificial split bees, which had reared their own queen decided to swam today and I'm not exactly sure why.

I'd completed an artificial queenless split about a 1.5 months ago and the colony was in a 6 frame NUC. They reared their own queen, and though I'd seen no eggs seemed happy enough, very sedate. and I managed to mark her the other day and shes been in the hive 3 days since marking.

Today, the sun was out - I'm cutting my hedge. And a cloud of bees erupted out of my apiary.

They landed on a tree, I caught them and sure enough my marked yellow queen was in the pile.

Inspection of the NUC where they came from showed about 1/2 the amount of bees left, no signs of another queen.

All I can think of was they might have run out of room? The NUC was seriously packed, so maybe she decided enough was enough and new home required?

Or is it likely that there is another queen in there that might be lurking?

Exciting stuff for sure.

 

[pargyle]

Hello

My artificial split bees, which had reared their own queen decided to swam today and I'm not exactly sure why.

I'd completed an artificial queenless split about a 1.5 months ago and the colony was in a 6 frame NUC. They reared their own queen, and though I'd seen no eggs seemed happy enough, very sedate. and I managed to mark her the other day and shes been in the hive 3 days since marking.

Today, the sun was out - I'm cutting my hedge. And a cloud of bees erupted out of my apiary.

They landed on a tree, I caught them and sure enough my marked yellow queen was in the pile.

Inspection of the NUC where they came from showed about 1/2 the amount of bees left, no signs of another queen.

All I can think of was they might have run out of room? The NUC was seriously packed, so maybe she decided enough was enough and new home required?

Or is it likely that there is another queen in there that might be lurking?

Exciting stuff for sure.

If they have swarmed there will either be queen cells or a recently emerged virgin in there ... I try not to do A/S into Nucs as a laying queen, once she has swarmed, is usually on a mission to get laying like a train ... I've found that a Nuc is rarely enough to contain the rate of lay for more than a few weeks - When you checked did you not notice any queen cells or that there was a lot of capped brood in there ?

 

[Swarm]

Agree with Pargyle, better off in a full hive and let her get going.

 

[linoleum bonypart]

Or double nuc

 

[GJUK]

Thanks guys.

My gut feeling was they left as there was not enough room - they were hanging out the front at night due to the amount of bees in there (I might have added a few more frames of brood than I should have).

Had a look again today, they seem rattled and no queen in there that I could see.

Exciting stuff though

 

[DaveS]

I did a split 4 weeks ago (leaving only 1 frame of bias with Q) to pre-empt swarming but found swarm cells at the weekend in the 14x12 brood box (original queen). They had plenty of room but heavy flow and great weather makes swarming hard to resist.

..run out of spare equipment now.

Definitely exciting!

 

[drex]

Don't think the "why" really matters, unless at the pre emptive stage.
Bees swarm.
Mine have gone balmy this year. Many As's, but still they are leaving if they want. I too now have very little spare kit.