Q running out of room

[mystil]

Hello
A query for you....please be gentle with me, this is my first full year.

One of our queens swarmed afew weeks ago due to the fact she ran out of laying room (9+ frames of brood) and the hive had produced rubbish QC's.

We split the hive with the queen on new foundation at the bottom and the brood above on a snelgrove board (QCs come to nothing eventually).

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We have re-united the two hives as they were not strong enough on their own and the top brood has nearly all hatched.

Checking yesturday:
The queen is so vigorious that she has laided all but 1.5 frames in 11 framed national in the bottom B/B (was just foundation afew weeks ago).

I also found a QC, with a nice looking grub inside.

Could this be supercedure? or swarming? No other cells and the cell was in the middle of the frame to the left abit.

I have put the queen in the top brood box with lots of space with a QE between the 2 brood boxes, so she cannot escape (fingers crossed) and gives me abit more time to do something about it, if it is swarming.

I was going to have a look at the QC in afew days to see if it was still being drawn out or taken down now that HM has a whole new BB to fill.

Do you think this was wise?

What do you think we should do now?

Thank you for your polite answers in advance.

Liza

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It looks like supersedure but if she's that prolific, why?

 

[mystil]

Yeah I have not a clue. Only that she is last years queen, got mated in the autumn so not very old.

Very good queen but she has tried to swarm twice this year.

 

[itma]

Single brood National?
Have you considered brood and a half or double brood? Or maybe even 14x12 ...
She sounds as though she needs a bit more space.

 

[mystil]

we already have 2 brood boxes on the hive so technically I would say she already is on double brood. Dont want to add another brood box to the mix if we can help it!

Will keep her on double brood and see how she gets on.

 

[oliver90owner]

One of our queens swarmed afew weeks ago ... We split the hive with the queen on new foundation

Which queen are we talking about, here? Ahh, one that has swarmed twice previously!

Had you not noticed this prolific lay-rate at previous inspections?

Do you think this was wise?

A good initial move.

Queens rarely (let's say, less commonly) swarm twice. They may be thinking she is due for a change and would not want to swarm yet again with an older queen.

I think it may be time to pension her off to a nuc, where you can keep her lay-rate down a bit by reducing the number of bees (and supply excess brood to your other colonies), with a view to breeding your next queens from her (all other important traits considered). She may seem to be swarmy but it might also appear that her swarming has been beekeeper induced.

RAB

 

[itma]

we already have 2 brood boxes on the hive so technically I would say she already is on double brood.

I would say that if, as you stated, there is a Queen Excluder between the boxes, then "technically" that is not "double brood".
Queen has the use of only one brood box -- so that is "single brood".