Remarkably full hive after swarm

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Joined
May 19, 2014
Messages
92
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0
Location
Oldham
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
3
Our only hive swarmed last Thursday.

We had been putting off this year's first inspection because they are supposed to be my wife's bees but we couldn't match her availablity to the nice weather, and I didn't want her to feel that I was trying to take over.

(We have now sorted this out - whoever is available will do inspections as and when necessary.)

We lost the swarm as it ended up in a neighbouring garden which is an 'unfriendly', but when I eventually got into the hive on Friday night I was very surprised to see so many bees still in there.

The hive was as full as I have ever seen it. My mentor suggested that the swarm was quite 'floaty' so some of the bees may have drifted back home?

There were several opened and emptied QC's, and a couple of sealed ones, so it has almost definitely swarmed.

We removed all but one nice large sealed QC and generally tidied up the hive, but whilst I was working my mentor who was assisting said she heard a queen piping from the brood box as well, although we didn't see her.

There was plenty of brood, both sealed and unsealed, and several sealed drone brood too. I didnt see any eggs, but then again I never have because of my poor eyesight.

There were plenty of stores taking up loads of space as well, which might be why the queen felt the need to swarm as she might have been restricted in her laying area.

We moved the nadired super back above a QE and left them to it for now.

When I got home I disected the sealed QC's we had removed, and these looked like they had been sealed for several days (the larvae looked to be between 12 and 14 days old).

My question is, can this be possible?

Can we have a hatched queen and others within a couple of days of hatching in the colony only a day after a swarm, and with a very large number of bees still in there?

I thought that the swarm would have left as soon as the first QC was sealed - weather has been perfect for them so that can't be a reason. I also thought that a swarm would have taken a fair proportion of the colony as well.

We are pretty certain that there haven't been any other swarms and that the swarm on Thursday wasn't a cast swarm.

What am I missing or misunderstanding?

Andy
 
.
You have missed to enlarge the hive in time.
But it was 3 weeks ago when it was time to handle this issue.
But who knows, if it would have helped.
 
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Yes, I know that we missed the time to enlarge, but how can we have a new queen in the hive, possibly another about to hatch only one day after swarming?
 
Yes, I know that we missed the time to enlarge, but how can we have a new queen in the hive, possibly another about to hatch only one day after swarming?

how can you be so sure the swarm was not a caste? that would explain all above a lot better...
 
There were several opened and emptied QC's, and a couple of sealed ones, so it has almost definitely swarmed.
You saw opened queen cells. There is a virgin there and 2 swarms have left the hive.

Those virgins are ready to mate at the age of 5 days.

Primary swarm leaves when first quen cells are capped. Then after a week queen cells emerges. First emerged peeps and other queens stay inside cells.

Then cast leaves, and queens in queen cells rush out and fight with each other. And the alive virgin destroyes the rest of queen cells ( hole on side).

If all queen cells are not emerged, pupa is perhaps sick, or virgin has come out but cap has shut again.

.
 
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Don't be surprised by the apparent large amount of bees in your hive ... I lost a swarm last year (didn't see it go) and until I saw the queen cells I really did not believe they had swarmed ... so many bees it just didn't seem possible that half of them had left !

But you appear to have left a QC behind and a queen in the hive ? I'd have put the frame with the queen cell into a Nuc with a few bees and some stores and you become a two hive owner !!
 
We had thought that the swarm on Thursday wasn't a cast as there had been no other swarmy activity in the days before that, the hive is on an allotment where there were lots of people on site throughout the whole of last week due to the weather, and activity like that at the apiary is usually noticed.

The number of bees remaining in the hive also seemed to be too high to have had a main swarm and a cast, but looking at the ages of the queen larvae and also the presence of open queen cells the only logical explanation is that there must have been a swarm in the days previous to Thursday, and the queen must have packed the cell full of eggs before she left leaving a very full hive.

The one sealed QC that we left may have been damaged and we simply didnt see it, to be honest I didn't know to look for a puncture wound.

I will double check it at weekend when we inspect again, if it is still there.

I think that I already knew the answer to my own question, but it was a case of me not accepting what I was seeing as the facts didn't fit what I wanted to be true.

Lesson learnt, I hope.

Andy
 
But you appear to have left a QC behind and a queen in the hive ? I'd have put the frame with the queen cell into a Nuc with a few bees and some stores and you become a two hive owner !!

That was an option I would have liked to explore, but we don't own a nuc, and the final bits (roof and floor) for our second hive are en route and should be with us tomorrow, otherwise I would have done as you said.

We didn't see HM, and I didn't hear her either (no surprise there though, my ears are worse than my eyes) so maybe it was safer not to split?

It looks like my learning curve is still almost vertical :)

Andy
 
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When swarm has gone, foraging traffic is quite silent.

But hundreds of new bees emerge every day.

.
 
Hi Samurailord
Just a quick post to say...I can fully understand your disbelief in the idea that a swarm has occurred given the number of bees that are still in the hive. I experienced the same 'doubts' in my first few years. But trust me, they really can build up to big numbers. It was only the appearance of QCs that convinced me they truly were mine.

Sally
 
A swarm issues in a flash and once it settles it is very difficult to detect any activity from it. So unless you see it go ....
 
That was an option I would have liked to explore, but we don't own a nuc, and the final bits (roof and floor) for our second hive are en route and should be with us tomorrow, otherwise I would have done as you said.

Andy

A bit late now, but in an emergency ANY container will do ... a plastic box with an entrance hole and a piece of plywood for a roof with a brick to hold it down would have sorted you out for the couple of days until your extra kit arrived - if you had the brood box then you could have just stood it on a few bricks with a sheet of something for the floor and roof and a bin liner full of something insulating (rags,old clothes, straw - anything) to take up the spare space in the hive.

Just some thoughts for the future - we all get caught out occasionally !
 
Just some thoughts for the future - we all get caught out occasionally !

When somebody keep bees, he should know that hive expands in spring and more in summer. That is why he should buy stuff for enlargening. Rubbish or orfinary stuff?

It seems that beginners do not believe that a hive needs 5 boxes, and 2-3 boxes is not enough for example in swarming time.
 
... in an emergency ANY container will do ...

:iagree: Almost anything will work as a temporary home for a swarm, as long as it's big enough and weatherproof. They should only be in it for a few days.

The number of bees remaining in the hive also seemed to be too high to have had a main swarm and a cast
One frame of brood will make about three frames of bees.
 
Are you sure it was not a cast swarm?

How do you know it was not a cast swarm?

Our only hive swarmed last Thursday.

We had been putting off this year's first inspection because they are supposed to be my wife's bees but we couldn't match her availablity to the nice weather, and I didn't want her to feel that I was trying to take over.

(We have now sorted this out - whoever is available will do inspections as and when necessary.)

We lost the swarm as it ended up in a neighbouring garden which is an 'unfriendly', but when I eventually got into the hive on Friday night I was very surprised to see so many bees still in there.

The hive was as full as I have ever seen it. My mentor suggested that the swarm was quite 'floaty' so some of the bees may have drifted back home?

There were several opened and emptied QC's, and a couple of sealed ones, so it has almost definitely swarmed.

We removed all but one nice large sealed QC and generally tidied up the hive, but whilst I was working my mentor who was assisting said she heard a queen piping from the brood box as well, although we didn't see her.

There was plenty of brood, both sealed and unsealed, and several sealed drone brood too. I didnt see any eggs, but then again I never have because of my poor eyesight.

There were plenty of stores taking up loads of space as well, which might be why the queen felt the need to swarm as she might have been restricted in her laying area.

We moved the nadired super back above a QE and left them to it for now.

When I got home I disected the sealed QC's we had removed, and these looked like they had been sealed for several days (the larvae looked to be between 12 and 14 days old).

My question is, can this be possible?

Can we have a hatched queen and others within a couple of days of hatching in the colony only a day after a swarm, and with a very large number of bees still in there?

I thought that the swarm would have left as soon as the first QC was sealed - weather has been perfect for them so that can't be a reason. I also thought that a swarm would have taken a fair proportion of the colony as well.

We are pretty certain that there haven't been any other swarms and that the swarm on Thursday wasn't a cast swarm.

What am I missing or misunderstanding?

Andy
 
It seems that beginners do not believe that a hive needs 5 boxes, and 2-3 boxes is not enough for example in swarming time.

I think a lot of beginners are surprised at how quickly bees multiply once the season starts in earnest ... and having enough kit (with the prices we pay outside of the sales in the UK) is not often that easy from a cost point of view.

People usually start beekeeping with a nuc ... and the first season really isn't reflective of what comes afterwards - a full colony is a very different proposition, on so many levels, to a small starter colony.

It's not that beginners don't believe, I think they just underestimate the exponential growth ... more so when the bees are in swarm mode or have already swarmed.
 
How do you know it was not a cast swarm?

What gets me is that a lot of people on here use the word 'cast swarm' to describe a swarm of small size - that's nonsense. A cast swarm is one headed by a virgin queen and can be any size from massive to tiny. Just the same an 'large' swarm isn't neccessarily a 'prime' swarm.
 
But you appear to have left a QC behind and a queen in the hive ? I'd have put the frame with the queen cell into a Nuc with a few bees and some stores and you become a two hive owner !!

Thinking back to the sequence of events, we had inspected the brood box which had overwintered on top of a nadird super and were just starting to check the super for any brood when we heard the piping, so is it possible that the one QC we had left alone had hatched and was making the noise?

Andy
 
Thinking back to the sequence of events, we had inspected the brood box which had overwintered on top of a nadird super and were just starting to check the super for any brood when we heard the piping, so is it possible that the one QC we had left alone had hatched and was making the noise?

Andy

It's possible ... you won't know until you look next time ... and even then it will be difficult to tell if you had one queen or two and one got killed ...
 

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