Second swarm from hive

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Liam C Ryan

House Bee
Joined
Jun 22, 2010
Messages
241
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Location
Tipperary
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
7
One of my hives swarmed for the second time yesterday. |I caught it and put it back in the hive. Is there a queen with a second swarm?
Liam C
 
Mine have swarmed twice as well and I'm sure I only left the one sealed QC. Would the bees raise another one in the time between sealing and hatching. Most of the brood nest area seemed to be filled with nectar when I looked today but I didn't put a super on because they were on brood and a half and I thought the number of foraging bees was depleted when the first swarm that went. I'm having real problems keeping the bees in the box!!!
 
Bees do not fancy their chances with just one queen cell. So, the problem is, you leave one proper swarm cell but the bees add to it by building emergency queen cells. And what ho, 'good' queen from proper swarm cell leaves with a swarm and the colony ends up being headed by a defective queen from a weedy emergency cell which cannot fly to mate on account of her defective wings!
 
I have two nice QC's in another box, if I take one and put it in the box with the duff QC's, will that work? If I leave the duff cells wont the Q just take off again?
 
Mine have swarmed twice as well and I'm sure I only left the one sealed QC. Would the bees raise another one in the time between sealing and hatching
Bees can and do raise queens from three day old larvae. That is the reason you go back in the box 5 days after you have marked the queen cell you are going to keep.
 
Ahh, thanks for that. I was thinking if I only left one QC I'd be OK. As this is only my first year, I'm not very experienced at judging the ages of the brood. Thanks for your help.
 
I have two nice QC's in another box, if I take one and put it in the box with the duff QC's, will that work? If I leave the duff cells wont the Q just take off again?

I would leave them with the duff queen cells. Duff queens tend not to mate. That's how you get a drone laying queen, because an unmated queen will eventually start to lay eggs.
 
Yep thats right you missed a queen cell or cells, you would be better now to destroy all queen cells in the hive making sure you have only one hatched queen which has left. Other wise what can happen is if there is another virgin queen in the hive and you are not aware of her when you introduce then new swarm cell, a cast can leave the hive or they will tear down the cell. I would remaove all emg cells and insert good swarm cell from another hive.

If the cell is capped I would not inspect for 7 days upon which I would then have a look for VQ on finding her I would close up and leave for 20 days. A good sign would be worker bees bringing in heaps of pollen this would indicate queen is laying but not conclusive seeing eggs in the brood area is definate.

Busy Bee
 

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