Next decision😂

[milkermel]

The day I planned to do an AS had me in a panic, I had bait boxes up as normal and then husband come in saying get your gear on you've got a swarm. Blast I thought left that artificial swarm too late. Nope it was someone else's. Nice size 3frames covered, left them bee for a few days then went in for proper check. Few eggs and found her majesty. Put a mark on her as unmarked. Yesterday no sign of her and queen cells FFS guess they killed her off because they didn't like the paint?? No new eggs so just got to wait now. I often don't mark my queen's and just thought I would be good. Oh well back to the drawing board

 

[beeno]

It is always a good idea to wait a week for them to get established as disturbance can lead to absconding. It could be that they did not like the marking, but it is also common for swarms to get rid of the old Q in order to get a young one to take the colony through the winter. Since you had eggs very quickly she was already mated and the second scenario may well be it, but we shall never know! I would be happy to leave more than one QC in this situation as I would deem the colony too small to want to swarm again and all the QC are of roughly the same age.

 

[enrico]

I do hope you didn't forget to do the AS you were going to do!

 

[youngyoungs]

it is also common for swarms to get rid of the old Q in order to get a young one to take the colony through the winter.

Beeno, Interested in this comment. This is the first year I've actively collected swarms from elsewhere and all bar one have requeened themselves. Do all swarms, whether prime or cast, often get rid of the queen they swarmed with?

Thanks

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Do all swarms, whether prime or cast, often get rid of the queen they swarmed with?
Thanks

No. Cast swarms have a brand new queen so, unless she's a duff one they'll keep her. When you get a swarm with a mated queen though, she could be a first season, second season queen or older. If they have swarmed with an older queen, what you'll often find is, when they settle in a new home and draw comb the queen will go into laying overdrive and often burn herself out - they then supersede her.
You sometimes find the same when you do a Demarre, the queen will go like the clappers to fill the now empty box (often with drawn comb so not even a rest before comb is available) and if she is a two year old or older, they either supersede in short order or in the spring you find a new queen.

 

[oliver90owner]

Ha ha, bees swarm to reproduce the colony. No other reason. If they wish to change the queen, they supercede the old ones. They may occasionally swarm if supercedure cells are destroyed by inexperienced beekeepers. It is old queens that usually get superceded before the winter. Superceeded queens mean the colony having two queens at some stage.

Seems like the poster needs to be sure of no queen and unite with another colony. Allowing them to develop a queen with only a few frames of bees is not the best idea, so add eggs and wait - then take appropriate steps.

 

[bobthecob]

Beeno, Interested in this comment. This is the first year I've actively collected swarms from elsewhere and all bar one have requeened themselves. Do all swarms, whether prime or cast, often get rid of the queen they swarmed with?

Thanks

I collect quite a lot of swarms - about 15 per year - and only a very small minority (maybe 1-3) requeen themselves in their first year. If you are seeing a high proportion requeen then just check that it isn't something that you are doing that is causing this. For example, if you are marking the queens, it may be that. Don't know.

 

[milkermel]

I do hope you didn't forget to do the AS you were going to do!

Nope that hot done as well