Queen keeps leaving hive

[iwannabee]

Have a clipped and marked queen. Yesterday tried to swarm but landed on grass outside hive as a result of being clipped. Carried out artificial swarm method. Today she was found again on the grass outside the hive. She is now in a skep but there are only a handful of bees in with her. The hive is showing no signs of swarming.

Any ideas what is going on?

One thought is that there is another queen in the hive but can't see how when I used the artificial swarm method.

 

[RoofTops]

If you are sure there are no queen cells, and if you did an AS it could only be on the frame the queen was on if the rest are foundation then put a QX under the brood chamber and reintroduce the queen. Leave it on until the colony gets established.

 

[iwannabee]

Defintely no QC, left them in other hive when did the artificial swarm. Never thought of the excluder floor idea. Sounds like a plan.

Still curious as to why this happened. Can't find anything on the net or in my books about it. I was under the impression that when the queen left there would be half the colony would go as well with her

 

[Annrbel]

Mutilated queen - horrible practice, I suspect she has a great big blob of goo to mark her as well!

 

[taff..]

Mutilated queen - horrible practice, I suspect she has a great big blob of goo to mark her as well!

the beauty of beekeeping, more than one way to do everything

 

[Midland Beek]

One thought is that there is another queen in the hive but can't see how when I used the artificial swarm method.

No. I don't think you would get swarms with the above.

The idea of an artificial swarm is to separate the brood from the queen in an effort to 'fool' them into thinking they have swarmed, so maybe you have not achieved that aim.

Either that, or you have left a queen cell in with the queen.

And giving the queenright part some foundatuion to draw also helps in the effort to fool them that they have swarmed.

 

[victor meldrew]

Have a clipped and marked queen. Yesterday tried to swarm but landed on grass outside hive as a result of being clipped. Carried out artificial swarm method. Today she was found again on the grass outside the hive. She is now in a skep but there are only a handful of bees in with her. The hive is showing no signs of swarming.

Any ideas what is going on?

One thought is that there is another queen in the hive but can't see how when I used the artificial swarm method.

I had a similar incident 4 weeks ago.
I found a couple of queen cells, which prompted me to perform an artificial swarm .
The day after she swarmed from a hive on the original spot which contained foundation only plus the frame of brood she was on ( definitely no hint of a queen cell !)
Luckily I caught the swarm and returned it over a queen excluder , first double checking that no queen cell/ cup was on the single brood frame !.
For the next 3 days the hive tried to swarm.
On day 7 I had a look and lo and behold, there where 2 bonnie sealed queen cells .Obviously from young grubs .

Moral of the story, once queen cells are sealed, the swarming mind set takes over and it becomes nigh impossible to head it off.
I dispatched the old queen and now have 2 new laying queens but have lost so much time . Hey Ho, that's beekeeping .

John Wilkinson

 

[victor meldrew]

Mutilated queen - horrible practice, I suspect she has a great big blob of goo to mark her as well!

I don't clip but I mark .

John Wilkinson

 

[Hivemaker.]

Mutilated queen - horrible practice, I suspect she has a great big blob of goo to mark her as well!

I clip every one of them........wonderful practice.

 

[plumberman]

Mutilated queen - horrible practice, I suspect she has a great big blob of goo to mark her as well!

Could you expand a bit on why you think this is mutilation?

 

[Poly Hive]

*buries head in hands and waits the inevitable outcome*

PH

 

[davethegas]

I agree "Tin hat time" again. Lol.

 

[MathJ]

Was told today in no uncertain terms by very experienced mentor that to put a QX under the brood to stop the queen leaving is very bad practise and causes the colony great distress.

 

[victor meldrew]

It is often an unfortunate necessity when performing a shook swarm !

It is of course a very temporary arrangement .
Often a shook swarmed Queen will bolt straight out of the front door

John Wilkinson

 

[BKF Admin]

Was told today in no uncertain terms by very experienced mentor that to put a QX under the brood to stop the queen leaving is very bad practise and causes the colony great distress.

How many hives does your mentor run ?

 

[plumberman]

I agree "Tin hat time" again. Lol.

Looks like this particular grenade was a dud.

 

[BKF Admin]

I need to go get some Popcorn..
I fear an epic thread brewing..

 

[m100]

I once left a QE between two brood boxes for a few days when I was combining two colonies with newspaper (it was a windy evening) and the bees weren't very happy. Presumably the smell of the dead drones in the top box stirred them up.

 

[beebreeder]

Mathj
But a Q/ex under the brood chamber saves a lot of stress to the people whos house or garden the swarm lands in,to the best of my knowledge its standard practice when hiving swarms as well especially if you have no frames of brood to keep them.
kev

 

[MathJ]

Admin - He's got 40+ hives and has been doing it for 37 years however, he still says he doesn't know it all although he was annoyed at the QX. I for one won't be doing that again.
Beebreeder - won't the queen be slimmed down for swarming therefore be able to get through the excluder anyway?