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Mersea Bees

New Bee
Joined
Jun 3, 2010
Messages
16
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Location
Mersea Island colchester Essex uk
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
1 Brought on Sunday 6th June 2010 & Now Have 9 Hives
I have had my bees for about a month now i brought them as a complete hive they have been working very hard and now have one full capped super on and one drawen out which they are starting to fill.

My queen is marked and clipped on saturday morning i got to my hive to see all my bees leaving the hive they moved about 50ft away from the hive then came back i have been told this is because the queen is clipped and she could not go with the swarm so they came back..

I was then told i must have a queen cell ( which i do fully drawn and sealed) so was told to find my old queen and split the hive putting the old queen in the new hive and put the new hive in the same spot as the old hive..

The only problem is i can not find the old Queen so what do i do now as i have a fully formed queen cell??

Many Thanks Stuart
 
Do you mean you didn't find the marked queen after the swarm attempt? Was there only ONE QC or many? Play cups?

If the queen was lost on the attempted swarm and you didn't put her back then you don't need to split and the capped cell should make a new queen for you. You need to check there are no other QCs though.
 
I could not find the marked queen there were many queen cells but have got rid of all but the best looking one..
 
your queen will have tried to fly and will be in the grass now most problaley dead, but check for clusters of bees under the hive, she may be with them

you should have been told to check every seven days for queen cells from april/may depending on the weather, your area and type of bees. did you?

what can you do now?

wait, until the QC hatches and wait, until she mates and wait until she lays.....so 24 days at least before you are queenright

any thing you need to check

yes most definetley, they will be queenless so, they will be making QC like mad, each one is a possible swarm, so check your hive and tell us what you see, mark each frames with a QC(s) with a drawing pin, so you can go back and treat it without too much distrubance ( PS you bees might get quite agressive Queen less)

to advise you problalbley at a distance, you need to tell us,where they are, middles of frame, edge of frame and bottom of frame, how many empty play cells .how many capped, how many uncapped ( ie with royal jelly in then )

depending waht you see, you will do nothing or remove some of the QC as these can produce swarms called "casrte" of their own
 
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Sometimes you can find the clipped queen, sometimes not. However with one queencell in the hive there is a good chance of them ropoducing a new queen from it. Check the hive in 5 days time and cut out any emergency queencells you find leaving just the one cell you have identified. Be VERY careful with it! Do not shake the frame it is on and don't bash it. Mark the frame with a drawing pin just above the cell so you don't forget where it is. You may need to shake the bees off the other frames to check for queencells. The small emergecny ones can be tricky to find.
As it is, the colony will have less and less brood to attend to for the next few weeks so they will bring in the honey so make sure there is enough room. It will be ablout a week before emergence of the new queen. Then - say a couple of weeks - maybe 4 or 5 - before she starts to lay, during this time you should leave well alone and wring your hands daily wondering if she is mated and laying (!). On nice days a few days afeter merrging you may see bees fanning around the entrance as the queen is out on her nuptuals and they are fanning her back home.

Mating time will depend on whether the weather is good or whether the weather is bad!.

Most do get mated.
 
They were ready to swarm? so a very strong colony?

What do you think they will likely do, shortly after the queen starts laying?

That and the fact that you only have one colony, I would be splitting them into two colonies and therefore: hedging my bets when queenless in the future, not having 100% winter losses if a colony fails, having insurance against the only queen cell being a dud, having less risk of losing the only queen, when mating (or not mating if the weather turned lousy, or of getting a drone layer in the near future), or... need I go on? (running out of brainstorming ideas.

OK, colony will lose some bees while she is emerging and mating etc, but not that many.

They might collect honey hand over fist when the open brood is capped, so beware!

Split the hive is my recommendation. Some might disagree, so let's be hearing other views.

Regards, RAB
 
UPDATE

Found old queen under hive this afternoon with very large cluster of bees and shook them off in to brood chamber then re found frame with queen on and put that frame and 3 others in new hive put new hive where original hive was put rapid feeder on top with 1:1 as it has undrawn brood frames put old hive with queen cell and rest of frames on new stand about 20ft away hopfully i have done this right????

Many Thanks

Stuart
 
:hurray::hurray::hurray: Well done, bet you were grinning from ear to ear when you found her!

you had a much better result then I did with mine! ended up with 3 hives so triple wringing of hands worrying!
 
A result!

I would, if space allowed, have put hive with queen cell(s) next to the hive with queen. Then when the first queen is due to emerge, move the hive to the other side of the queen-right box so that flying bees would tend to join the 'old queen' colony. Less risk of a cast if you have missed any queen cells in the other hive.

But it should not matter if you only retain the one queen cell, and knock down any others before that one is due to emerge.

Regards, RAB
 
Still Have problems

The new hive with the old queen in it has now got a mass of bees under it what should i do now???? Please


Many Thanks

Stuart
 
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