my hive has just swarmed! advice needed.

[Edward.21]

hello all
as above one of my hives has just swarmed and i need some advice. i have captured the swarm (fortunately) and re homed them but I'm not sure as to what to do with the hive that the swarm has come from.
can i inspect and remove any remaining q cells to stop secondary swarms?
how long do i have before the new queens emerge?
do you think that squashing all but one qc is better or leaving them to sort it out themselves.
is there anything obvious (being a newbie) that i've forgotten.

thanks in advance, eddy.

 

[drex]

Re homed them? Into a new box with foundation, frame of brood, qe under? Please give us some more detail. That will determine how you treat the old hive. If you have just put them back into original hive they will be off again

 

[Hebeegeebee]

For queenless colony, cut down to one open and well-fed queencell. Then you can be sure you know it's viable and you know the date better than a sealed queencell.
Queen will emerge 8 days after the q/c is sealed. Will not mate for - say 5 days after emerging, but will only mate in good weather. Hope for 20C for a day or two sometime between the 5th day after emerging and 4 weeks. After that she will be a dud. Usually recommended to leave for 3 weeks after emerging and then check for eggs/larvae but you will be an avid watcher of the weather forecasts!

Queen excluder for a couple or three days under the housed swarm. Feed, and if on foundation they'll give you some excellent drawn comb. The queen should be laying within a few days.

 

[Edward.21]

i should have been more specific, i have put them into a 6 frame nuc with undrawn foundation (as i have no drawn foundation).

should i take a frame of brood from my other colony and put it in with the swarm?

 

[Edward.21]

For queenless colony, cut down to one open and well-fed queencell. Then you can be sure you know it's viable and you know the date better than a sealed queencell.
Queen will emerge 8 days after the q/c is sealed. Will not mate for - say 5 days after emerging, but will only mate in good weather. Hope for 20C for a day or two sometime between the 5th day after emerging and 4 weeks. After that she will be a dud. Usually recommended to leave for 3 weeks after emerging and then check for eggs/larvae but you will be an avid watcher of the weather forecasts!

Queen excluder for a couple or three days under the housed swarm. Feed, and if on foundation they'll give you some excellent drawn comb. The queen should be laying within a few days.

thanks Hebeegeebee
i have them in a 6 frame nuc atm is worth putting them in a bb with a qe under or will the nuc be ok?
thanks again.

 

[Chris B]

If you want to prevent cast swarms you must inspect the colony TWICE, the first time must be asap, and then again 7 days later. The timing is very important.

At first inspection remove all sealed queen cells.

At second inspection reduce to 1 queen cell.

It is not good enough to reduce to 1 queen cell now and assume you've done the job. They are more than capable of making more queen cells if they have young brood. But 7 days after the original swarm left there should be nothing young enough to make new queen cells from, so that's when you can reduce to 1 qc and be confident no more will be produced.

 

[oliver90owner]

A few more things.

Choose the queen cell (or two) that you intend to keep. Mark the frame(s) and position.

You will not then be leaving a duff cell in a week's time.

Secondly, a nuc is not big enough for half your original colony! Think here. It likely swRmed because there was insufficient space - and that may well be a brood box and super (s); you have now stuffed about half your bees in less than half the space. Not a sensible situation and they may well be off, shortly, to a more spacious new home.

Lastly, get a beekeeping book and read it. Very basic knowledge of pupation periods are included in any decent tome. Not a good situation for a third (?) season beek I would suggest.

 

[Edward.21]

Thanks for all the advice. Tomorrow I'll put the swarm into a BB with a QE underneath, inspect the original hive and remove all queen cells, then in a week remove all but one.

Oliver; Thank you very much for the advice. i do have a couple of beekeeping books that i've read and i've done the a BBKA course on beekeeping, however i am still vastly less experienced than some on here and as such i like to cover all my bases. thanks again for your advice.

 

[mbc]

Mun, if theres plenty of sealed cells then have a look inside a few, with any luck virgins will be about to emerge, if so "pull"* the lot of them and let the virgins fight it out. Hooper wrote that a hive wont send out a cast swarm without any sealed cells, and its always worked for me.

*"pulling" queen cells means helping them emerge whether they're ready or not, cells which are about to emerge have a band of thinned out wax in a little cup shape round the end of the cell. So long as the wings have developed virgins can survive being pulled a bit early.

 

[scuttlefish]

Hooper wrote that a hive wont send out a cast swarm without any sealed cells

Do the bees know that?