Need a bit of advise please... Casts

[loving_allsorts]

Hi there. I wrote last weekend here :

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=16811

Basically my bees swarmed last weekend.
I caught the swarm as they were on my allotment neighbours blackberry bush.
It's in a brood box on frames of foundation and a bag of fondant on teh crown board.

After I caught the swarm I removed all queen cells in a bid to stop them casting (which I later found out was the wrong move as I may have made them queenless.)

Well I didn't, in fact I must have failed to remove at least one queen cell because they have cast today. Another big swarm were on the same blackberry bush.

I have again caught them and put them into a new brood box (which I only had super frames to accommodate and so will buy a super box tommorrow and get them set up in a small hive. I'll later (if they develope well) put a brood box under and keep them on brood and a half.)

My problem is... Have they finished now? I'm going to go through the hive tommorrow weather permiting but should I remove ALL of the queen cells providing I find eggs?

I am a bit stuck with the way forwards.

I've read the 'There are queen cells in my hive - what should I do' release from the Welsh Assembly government and what I have gathered is that I should ow go through the hive and release any 'about to hatch' queens. And remove all other queen cells. If I don't hatch any queens I should leave just one queen cell.

Is this correct?

Many thanks

Mark

 

[REDWOOD]

I would have a look for sealed queen cells if you have more remove all except 2, close the hive and leave for new queens to hatch and mate. Don't ever get rid of that blackberry bush lol

 

[oliver90owner]

After I caught the swarm I removed all queen cells in a bid to stop them

To get a cast, you must have left more than one queen cell. Unless you left one and they built emergency cells and they have gone with the first queen emerging, which is unusual.

I'm afraid that if you missed cells, they are likely small ones? So possibly just get scrub queens.

Buy a brood box and frames and get them on the proper frames, even if only a few with a divider is my advice.

 

[Poly Hive]

The honest answer is it depends.

If they are in swarm mode and are a swarmy strain, and you miss another couple of cells then I strongly suspect that yes they will cast again.

So... wwhat to do?

You need to cool them down. How says you?

What you need to do is to carefully go through the combs, one by one, and in this instance PROVIDED there are eggs and young larvae you can shake the bees to ensure you do not miss the sneaky cell made from brood wax, a quarter inch long that is between the comb and the side bar.... hint.

If no eggs etc then do NOT shake as you will damage your future queen.

Knock all the cells out and or put one in a nuc for safety sake, (to raise a spare queen) and then leave them to get on with is as you have put them back five days or so.

Good luck

PH

 

[loving_allsorts]

After I caught the swarm I removed all queen cells in a bid to stop them

To get a cast, you must have left more than one queen cell. Unless you left one and they built emergency cells and they have gone with the first queen emerging, which is unusual.

Nope, it would be awfully quick if they made an emergence quuen cell and capped it in under a week. I don't think this is the case.

I think I just missed it because I am a 28 year old newbee with the eyes of a worm!

PH.. are you saying to remove ALL queen cells if there are eggs?

Cheers

Mark

 

[drstitson]

are you sure the swarm is from the same hive?

BTW according to the welsh booklet queen cells MAY be produced and sealed in under 5 days, especially if previous rounds of cell destruction have taken place.

But to get a cast there must have been at least one cell left, presumably two or more.

 

[loving_allsorts]

I only had one hive, and I checked the swarm I caught last time and it's doing fine. So unles the swarm is from somewhere else and it chose to swarm in exactly the same position as my last swarm I think they are mine. But if I've learnt anything while keeping these bees its that they will always supprise you so I suppose they may not be mine. PRetty sure they are though.

cheers

 

[drstitson]

have you dowsed around the site of the blackberry bush? might be on the intersection of 2 GSLs!!!

 

[burren]

Now that would be interesting to know!

 

[loving_allsorts]

have you dowsed around the site of the blackberry bush? might be on the intersection of 2 GSLs!!!

any good instructions online? I'll have a go. but I'll add that lat year they swarmed on the raspberry patch the other side of the apiary..

cheers

Mark

 

[loving_allsorts]

So...

I went down and firstly found the swarm I caught yesterday had decided to leave the hive and ball up all over the one corner and under the floor in the cavity created by a couple of lengths of wood I used to pick the floor up off the concrete.

So for that lot I moved the hive off the hive floor. Shook all the bees off the hive floor onto the concrete in the position the hive is going. Placed the hive back there but with no wooden floor. Hopefully they will move up into the hive now. All I'll have to do later 'hopefully' is put the hive floor back under the hive carefully.

WRT swarm control. I did a good proper dig through the brood box. Released three queens and destroyed a further 4 queen cells. There are no brood, no eggs, about three frames of sealed brood.

I put the hive back together and fed all three colonies.

Then I noticed that they had started to cast AGAIN! The lid to the parent colony was off still and so I decided (as the cast was just forming and it was about the size of a 2 litre milk cartain (infact that was what I used to pick them up with, the top cut off and I just lowered them into it from the honey suckle they were hanging off) and I poured them into teh parent hive.

There was a bit of scrapping and then they settled down. I put the lid on and job's a good'en.. I went up an hour later and the few bees that had been in the final cast had disapeared and everything seemed to be functioning 'normally'

Did I do that all correctly???

Did I miss anything????

Hopefully that'll do it!
Cheers

Mark

 

[RoofTops]

To get a cast, you must have left more than one queen cell. Unless you left one and they built emergency cells and they have gone with the first queen emerging, which is unusual.

Nope, it would be awfully quick if they made an emergence queen cell and capped it in under a week. I don't think this is the case.

As DrS says, not quick at all. Queen cells are capped after 8 days but 3 of those days are as an egg so the open queen cell with larva is only there for 5 days.

If they are making proper queen cells, these will start with the egg in a queen cup so the beekeeper who checks every 7 days can in theory prevent swarming as they will see the cup - but they can also start from an existing worker cell and if this is what they choose they will seal over the cell and be off before the statutory 7 days are up. It could be as little as 5 or even 4 I think. And of course they don't always wait for the cell to be sealed.

For housing a swarm I always put a queen excluder under the brood box after they first move in - it stops the queen leaving so even if they try to leave they will return after 20 minutes or so as soon as they realise the queen is missing. Take the QX away as soon as you see brood - assuming it is a prime swarm, otherwise for a virgin queen after say 2 or 3 days and they have started to make comb.

 

[drex]

If you bunged the final cast back into the hive they came from they are likely to be off again soon.

You say you pulled 3 queens and fed all 3 colonies, so I presume you set these queens up in new colonies?

They will not cast or swarm without leaving the makings of a new queen, and I would suggest you are just not finding them all.

Sounds like an undesirably swarmy strain, that would be better replaced.

 

[loving_allsorts]

If you bunged the final cast back into the hive they came from they are likely to be off again soon.

You say you pulled 3 queens and fed all 3 colonies, so I presume you set these queens up in new colonies?

They will not cast or swarm without leaving the makings of a new queen, and I would suggest you are just not finding them all.

Sounds like an undesirably swarmy strain, that would be better replaced.

I bought them last year from a rather important member of our association. They swarmed last year too. Got them in May, they swarmed in July. Annoying.


I suppose I need to get hold of a few queens. Where do I start in choosing a queen? Italian Queens I heard are docile and non-swarmy, or is that just hearsay?