MandF
Drone Bee
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2009
- Messages
- 1,207
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- London, UK
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 2
Apologies if this has been asked before.
My situation is this;
On one of my hives I noticed queen cups with eggs on inspection on 18th May. I squished the eggs and added some more space for them, in case this might remove the urge.
1 week later I checked them again, and this time found charged QCs, on the verge of being capped. I immediately did an A/S with snelgrove - put frame with queen + foundation in bottom box, rest of brood above snelgrove, side entrance. Destroyed all but 2 QCs.
Next day prime swarm emerged anyway, up into a leylandii out of reach. Should have used an excluder to hold her in for a couple of days. So put brood (with 2 qcs) back on bottom, remove the snelgrove.
The next day (monday 27th) the swarm came back down to behind my hives, so luckily I got them and have them in a separate brood box. Idea at this stage was to let the original hive raise new queen, and once ok kill old queen and reunite the "swarm".
According to my calcs the new queen would have emerged by saturday, and mate later this week. Plan was to leave it and check in a bit after.
That was the plan. I noticed a fair bit of activity brewing with the hives earlier this eve, went down and saw the activity was this hive. Suspecting a cast swarm about to emerge I decided to check through it, sure enough found another 5-6 QCs. As the bees were still around I decided the new queen hadnt left yet, so destroyed all the QCs, and put an excluder underneath the brood box. Reassembled the hive and the bees slowly returned, no fanning.
So, the new plan is to leave the QX on for 2 days, and remove it - assuming she cant get through it, and isnt killed when being forced through it, the idea is that 2 days is long enough for them to realise they have no QCs left, so wont want to swarm any more, plus the 2 days takes us to the calculated first day of her mating flights. I still have the original queen to put back in if necessary.
Does the revised plan sound ok? I have read about 'pulling' queens and leaving them to it, but in this case it looked like they were about to swarm anyway, so figured this was the only way to stop them, without finding the new queen. I guess there could be 2 virgins in there anyway, but apart from that I mean?
Thanks
My situation is this;
On one of my hives I noticed queen cups with eggs on inspection on 18th May. I squished the eggs and added some more space for them, in case this might remove the urge.
1 week later I checked them again, and this time found charged QCs, on the verge of being capped. I immediately did an A/S with snelgrove - put frame with queen + foundation in bottom box, rest of brood above snelgrove, side entrance. Destroyed all but 2 QCs.
Next day prime swarm emerged anyway, up into a leylandii out of reach. Should have used an excluder to hold her in for a couple of days. So put brood (with 2 qcs) back on bottom, remove the snelgrove.
The next day (monday 27th) the swarm came back down to behind my hives, so luckily I got them and have them in a separate brood box. Idea at this stage was to let the original hive raise new queen, and once ok kill old queen and reunite the "swarm".
According to my calcs the new queen would have emerged by saturday, and mate later this week. Plan was to leave it and check in a bit after.
That was the plan. I noticed a fair bit of activity brewing with the hives earlier this eve, went down and saw the activity was this hive. Suspecting a cast swarm about to emerge I decided to check through it, sure enough found another 5-6 QCs. As the bees were still around I decided the new queen hadnt left yet, so destroyed all the QCs, and put an excluder underneath the brood box. Reassembled the hive and the bees slowly returned, no fanning.
So, the new plan is to leave the QX on for 2 days, and remove it - assuming she cant get through it, and isnt killed when being forced through it, the idea is that 2 days is long enough for them to realise they have no QCs left, so wont want to swarm any more, plus the 2 days takes us to the calculated first day of her mating flights. I still have the original queen to put back in if necessary.
Does the revised plan sound ok? I have read about 'pulling' queens and leaving them to it, but in this case it looked like they were about to swarm anyway, so figured this was the only way to stop them, without finding the new queen. I guess there could be 2 virgins in there anyway, but apart from that I mean?
Thanks