Some Advice

[Nbw]

Hi all.

So 3 weeks ago, we had our first swarm. I caught the swarm in a NUC but unfortunately, the left the next day due to the lack of space i expect. I left it a week and removed all the queen cells to introduce a new BlackMountain Buckfest mated queen. 48 hours later i removed he cage tabs to release her into the hive.

I left it 2 weeks after releasing the queen and it seems as though she was rejected. I was unable to find her but instead found 3 charged QC through various levels of maturity. I have removed one leaving 2. Checking today one is now capped and the other is a a few days behind.

This is my only hive, 3 weeks after the swarm numbers are seriously low in the hive now. Any advice?
Based in Essex

 

[Swift Nick]

I did a similar thing a four years ago, put a purchased queen into a hive that had just swarmed. The purchased queen swarmed with more bees, I caught the swarm so knew what had happened, it was my only red marked queen. They need to make their own queen.
Something like this has happened to you, the eggs that made the queen cells were only laid a week ago.
You need to thin the queen cells to one only or the may throw off another cast.

 

[Swarm]

All you can do now is wait for the new queen to emerge, leave them one cell and break down any others. The problem lies with introducing a mated queen to a colony in swarm mode that is expecting to find a virgin.

 

[blackcloud]

One cell then leave it alone to do its stuff (or not) but don't throw any more money at it.
Get a bait hive up and catch another.

 

[Boston Bees]

If I had only one hive, and two cells, I would split the hive in two nucs, and put them right next to each other on the stand, so the flyers go into both equally. Put one cell in each. Hedges your bets. If only one gets mated, you can recombine easily. If both get mated, you have options.

 

[Nbw]

Good idea, i have a single Nuc and a hive. Do i split the brood frames between the 2?
IE leave 5 in the hive and move 5 to the nuc? I have some spare brood frames to put in the hive to fill it out

 

[Boston Bees]

Good idea, i have a single Nuc and a hive. Do i split the brood frames between the 2?
IE leave 5 in the hive and move 5 to the nuc? I have some spare brood frames to put in the hive to fill it out

Yes, you want as equal a division of assets (stores, brood, pollen, nurse bees, foragers) as possible between the two boxes

 

[Nbw]

So. I split the colony as mentioned. My QC should be emerging now. When do I inspect. Shall I leave it 2 weeks to give the queen time to mate?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

So. I split the colony as mentioned. My QC should be emerging now. When do I inspect. Shall I leave it 2 weeks to give the queen time to mate?

give her a month before even thinking of opening up

 

[Nbw]

Just an update

So i split half the brood frames, moving half out of the hive (including a frame with capped QC) into a nuc.

The hive looks to have some healthy activity. The NUC though has zero activity. Just opened up the box and could see a few dead bees on top of some of the brood frames and a few bees wondering around.

What should i do if anything for the NUC?
If the split failed what do i do with the remaining bees in the NUC?
What do i do with the frames?

Thanks

 

[jeff33]

The hive looks to have some healthy activity. The NUC though has zero activity. Just opened up the box and could see a few dead bees on top of some of the brood frames and a few bees wondering around.

Normal as all your flying bees will have gone back to the original hive leaving only the nurse non flying bees behind. When you split that way you have to consider that between 50-70% of bees in the new hive will go back to the original hive. I tend to split with only a couple of frames of brood and shake 2 more frames of bees in for good measure.

When did you do the split, last Friday? If you don't have enough bees to cover the frames of brood in your nuc it may compromise their emergence. If you don't have a queen in the nuc I would spray a bit of air freshener and shake 2 frames of bees from your other hive (you can use super frames or frames with open brood as this is where your nurse bees will be).