Strange one?

[Shabro]

I performed an AS on Friday with one of my hives, not a problem the queen was removed and put onto fresh foundation and moved to another apiary because I had run out of room, they have drawn out a couple of frames and she is laying already.
The old hive, I left in the same location, with two nice unsealed queen cells, all ok I thought.
Last night I got a phone call telling me that one of my hives was swarming...... the one I have just ASed.......
How does that work then? Do they need reading glasses to view the text books?

 

[Erichalfbee]

You didn't do it properly.
The point of an AS is to separate the queen from the brood only, not the foragers.In moving her into a new box with foundation and then moving that box away you didn't do that. The flyers are still going into the congested box on the original site. Congestion remains about the same so off they go when the first queen emerges;you might have missed an older cell than the two you left.
They might well have made more since you closed up so go look now or you will lose more bees.

AS
OLD queen NEW box OLD site.

 

[steve56616]

You didn't do it properly.
The point of an AS is to separate the queen from the brood only, not the foragers.In moving her into a new box with foundation and then moving that box away you didn't do that. The flyers are still going into the congested box on the original site. Congestion remains about the same so off they go
They sometimes go before cell is sealed or you might have missed an older cell.
They might well have made more since you closed up so go look now or you will lose more bees.

AS
OLD queen NEW box OLD site.

I did this. Old queen New box Old site - laying eggs but it didn't keep her :-(

 

[Erichalfbee]

That's not how your post reads

the queen was removed and put onto fresh foundation and moved to another apiary.
The old hive, I left in the same location, with two nice unsealed queen cells,

 

[steve56616]

That's not how your post reads

You got a little mixed up Erica

 

[Erichalfbee]

I am mixed up
Don't understand
I'm sure queen was removed and put onto fresh foundation and moved to another apiary means that the OP took the queen out of the original hive and moved her away.....

 

[ellypatt]

The op didn't write the second response - it was a different poster.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Ahhh post three is from steve56616
Right.
Yes, I'm sure that happens if you AS too late.....ie they were going to swarm imminently.
I put a bit of QE in front of entrance but even then you sometimes lose them

Shabro still did it incorrectly.......am I still confused?

 

[Shabro]

Fair enough , it makes sense I suppose, I thought I'd took enough bees with the queen and that the brood break would have helped but oh well.

 

[beeno]

Hi ericA,
Shabro did it incorrectly as you said. Next poster was Steve. He is trying to tell us that he did it correctly as you specified to Shabro, but his still swarmed. Finman would call it that they had the Fever (swarm fever that is) and they beat us again! Never work with animals or children springs to mind!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thanks Beeno.....had just about worked it out....brain of mush yesterday.
Better be better today....inspection due.

 

[oliver90owner]

The Padgen system for A/S was designed carefully to (mostly) avoid all these problems. If you don't do the whole thing properly, you cannot complain when it doesn't work.

It is not a 'one day' operation. There are valid reasons for all the manipulations, which some beeks clearly fail to understand.

All the OP did was effectively splitting off the old queen, not an A/S by any means of the description.

 

[beeno]

No worries ericA. Thanks for all your work on the forum I always find your advice most helpful.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Ahhh post three is from steve56616
Right.
Yes, I'm sure that happens if you AS too late.....ie they were going to swarm imminently.
I put a bit of QE in front of entrance but even then you sometimes lose them

Shabro still did it incorrectly.......am I still confused?

No, You were right. And I agree if you leave an A/S until it's too late i.e. QC's are sealed then the red button has been pressed and there's a good change they'll go regardless.
It has been found now that it's the flying (foraging) bees that are the instigators of swarming thus in an A/S you take the brood, nurse bees and QC's away to a different location meaning they don't get bothered by the flyers thus don't swarm. All the flyers go back to the queen in an empty box thus are almost satisfied they have swarmed, but beariing in mind that in a natural swarm a large percentage of bees are 3 to 7 days old and our A/S consists of older foragers thee is an imbalance. Putting the supers back on top of this colony gives them back the young bees that are wax making and tending the honey redresses some of the imbalance without the overcrowding thus all are happy (in theory! )
A phenomenon that has been observed with 'splits' is, if you take a queen out of a colony with swarm cells and put her in a nuc with a good shake of bees and keep the nuc in the same apiary, everything is hunky dory - but if you take that nuc three miles away, a lot of the time they still swarm:
Colony left in apiary - fliers return to 'home' hive thus no fliers in with queen to instigate swarm.
Nuc taken away - fliers still present, now in a 'smaller' box so a good chance 'swarm fever' is still there thus they instigate swarming anyway.

 

[Suzi Q]

"A phenomenon that has been observed with 'splits' is, if you take a queen out of a colony with swarm cells and put her in a nuc with a good shake of bees and keep the nuc in the same apiary, everything is hunky dory - but if you take that nuc three miles away, a lot of the time they still swarm:
Colony left in apiary - fliers return to 'home' hive thus no fliers in with queen to instigate swarm.
Nuc taken away - fliers still present, now in a 'smaller' box so a good chance 'swarm fever' is still there thus they instigate swarming anyway.[/QUOTE]

I used the 'nuc' method on a colony wanting to swarm, kept the nuc with queen in the same apiary, it worked perfectly, the nuc with old queen still laying, and the old colony with a new queen, now. So I would agree with the above! I tried the Pagden method at another site and it didn't go so smoothly, ended up with two new queens, but there was a long brood break and so loss of bees, a bit disappointing since the lime is just about to flower.