Queen cells everywhere....

[RichardK]

OK..so some of this is of my own making but still....bear with me. Up front I should say I'm aware this may not be the 'best' way to do things, however, I'm learning and it's fun.

• Wednesday last week I introduced 2 new Buckfast queens into 2 Nucs and all went well. Today I had a quick look and in 1 nuc saw 3 capped queen cells + another 2 or 3 charged cups. Timing wise they must have been early work in progress when I moved the frames from a hive (Hive 2) to create the nucs for the arriving queens. I squished all of them. I should add both queens are laying. (Thanks for the help to those of you who replied to my post last week on how to introduce the queens by the way.)
• I've tried grafting this week - not as easy as I thought....I set up a nuc with a load of nurse bees and some frames of stores to add the grafts to.
  • Attempt 1: 0/10.
  • Attempt 2: 2/10. Hurray! That'll do for me for the moment. I can do something with 2 but don't really want any more.
• 2 frame nuc - I took a frame with a capped queen cell and some bees (from Hive 2...) at the weekend. They've doing nicely - in theory emerging queen next Sunday / Monday.​
• Hive 2...... this is a swarm from May 19th and they've done well. Still, they are either thinking of swarming or superseding and queen cells seem to be top of their mind at the moment. They've spawned all the ones mentioned above, and have another capped cell, and 2 charged open cells on the go. I haven't yet decided what to do with these....move the queen into a nuc or simply let nature takes it's course. I'm favouring moving the queen right now though, although of course I could just find myself in the same position again in a weeks time. Any views on what I should do?​

 

[Boston Bees]

OK..so some of this is of my own making but still....bear with me. Up front I should say I'm aware this may not be the 'best' way to do things, however, I'm learning and it's fun.

• Wednesday last week I introduced 2 new Buckfast queens into 2 Nucs and all went well. Today I had a quick look and in 1 nuc saw 3 capped queen cells + another 2 or 3 charged cups. Timing wise they must have been early work in progress when I moved the frames from a hive (Hive 2) to create the nucs for the arriving queens. I squished all of them. I should add both queens are laying. (Thanks for the help to those of you who replied to my post last week on how to introduce the queens by the way.)
• I've tried grafting this week - not as easy as I thought....I set up a nuc with a load of nurse bees and some frames of stores to add the grafts to.
  • Attempt 1: 0/10.
  • Attempt 2: 2/10. Hurray! That'll do for me for the moment. I can do something with 2 but don't really want any more.
• 2 frame nuc - I took a frame with a capped queen cell and some bees (from Hive 2...) at the weekend. They've doing nicely - in theory emerging queen next Sunday / Monday.​
• Hive 2...... this is a swarm from May 19th and they've done well. Still, they are either thinking of swarming or superseding and queen cells seem to be top of their mind at the moment. They've spawned all the ones mentioned above, and have another capped cell, and 2 charged open cells on the go. I haven't yet decided what to do with these....move the queen into a nuc or simply let nature takes it's course. I'm favouring moving the queen right now though, although of course I could just find myself in the same position again in a weeks time. Any views on what I should do?​

Just nuc the queen. You could have done this instead of creating that 2 frame nuc? If they want to swarm, just accept it and help them.

 

[Ian123]

Destroy any cells in the Nucs you introduced queens to. If you provide them with eggs/larvae they often start cells before new queens are up and running. They may tear down but will often carry them on.

 

[drex]

Hive 2 was a swarm in May and are swarming again. Do you ant to propagate these genes in your apiary?

 

[RichardK]

Hive 2 was a swarm in May and are swarming again. Do you ant to propagate these genes in your apiary?

Ah but whose to know if it's swarming or supersedure? From what I read the latter is not uncommon late July / Aug with a swarm collected earlier in the year. Anyhow, right now I'm happy 'playing around' and learning. If it bites me on the bum, I'll still have learnt something.

 

[RichardK]

Just nuc the queen. You could have done this instead of creating that 2 frame nuc? If they want to swarm, just accept it and help them.

You're right - I could have. But I wanted to see the process through of removing the frame with the cell and taking it through to a mated queen. Pretty much everything is a first for me right now! I don't want to do it a second time though. Thanks for your advice.

 

[Rockape83]

OK..so some of this is of my own making but still....bear with me. Up front I should say I'm aware this may not be the 'best' way to do things, however, I'm learning and it's fun.

• Wednesday last week I introduced 2 new Buckfast queens into 2 Nucs and all went well. Today I had a quick look and in 1 nuc saw 3 capped queen cells + another 2 or 3 charged cups. Timing wise they must have been early work in progress when I moved the frames from a hive (Hive 2) to create the nucs for the arriving queens. I squished all of them. I should add both queens are laying. (Thanks for the help to those of you who replied to my post last week on how to introduce the queens by the way.)
• I've tried grafting this week - not as easy as I thought....I set up a nuc with a load of nurse bees and some frames of stores to add the grafts to.
  • Attempt 1: 0/10.
  • Attempt 2: 2/10. Hurray! That'll do for me for the moment. I can do something with 2 but don't really want any more.
• 2 frame nuc - I took a frame with a capped queen cell and some bees (from Hive 2...) at the weekend. They've doing nicely - in theory emerging queen next Sunday / Monday.​
• Hive 2...... this is a swarm from May 19th and they've done well. Still, they are either thinking of swarming or superseding and queen cells seem to be top of their mind at the moment. They've spawned all the ones mentioned above, and have another capped cell, and 2 charged open cells on the go. I haven't yet decided what to do with these....move the queen into a nuc or simply let nature takes it's course. I'm favouring moving the queen right now though, although of course I could just find myself in the same position again in a weeks time. Any views on what I should do?​

Move the queen, and sufficient workers into the nuc. move to a different area to where they are now if possible. do you have extra hives to move extras to?

 

[RichardK]

I will indeed move her with some bees to a nuc (which I have) this Sunday (1/8) - the queen cell by my estimations will emerge 5/8. I'm loathed to move her sooner as she's doing a great job of laying everywhere possible as the hive gets built back up following my raiding it to create other colonies over the last 7 to 10 days...I may pay the price if it is indeed swarm prep rather than supersedure! Ideally I'd like as small a gap as possible between her going and the new queen starting to lay.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Move the queen, and sufficient workers into the nuc. move to a different area to where they are now if possible. do you have extra hives to move extras to?

If it is swarming and you nuc the queen and move her to a 'different area' there's a good chance you will have nuced a load of flying bees with her, because you've moved them to a different apiary, they will stay with the queen rather than return to the home hive. Flying bees are the swarm instigators - so they still may swarm.

 

[RichardK]

If it is swarming and you nuc the queen and move her to a 'different area' there's a good chance you will have nuced a load of flying bees with her, because you've moved them to a different apiary, they will stay with the queen rather than return to the home hive. Flying bees are the swarm instigators - so they still may swarm.

Good point. I don't have a second apiary so she'll be staying here, hence any foragers will fly 'home'. My gut feel is it's not swarming but supersedure.