supercedure? advice please

[keithgrimes]

A new member of our association asked me to look at his colony yesterday. He was given a swarm two months ago, provenance unknown. Its not very strong, four or five seams of bees. There is brood but non uncapped that I could see. The queen is present. There are two large queen cells, both with larvae, on the lower half of the same frame. I am assuming, given time of year and size of colony, that this is not a swarm warning and that they are superceding. If thats the case, do I squish the existing queen or just let them get on with it? I am concerned that this colony will not build up sufficiently for winter and I have suggested a combine as an option, but he is not too keen atm. What would you do?

 

[Poly Hive]

In one sentence.

Leave them alone.

The queen will lay if she can while the virgin gets mated and commences herself.

PH

 

[Busybee123]

I'm not really qualified to advise you, but I do understand your problem!

I bought a nuc about 6 weeks ago that was building up nicely, but I found one queen cup containing an egg in the centre of a frame last Saturday. I checked on Tuesday and the cell now had royal jelly in, but no grub that i could find. Rightly or wrongly (probably wrongly!) I removed it to have a closer look....(and still did not find a grub)

Anyway the point is, one or two queen cells in the centre of a frame at the beginning of August = classic case of supercedure, BUT this was a newly mated and very prolific queen. It does not make sense to me, but perhaps my problem is that I expect the bees to always do things by the book and obey the laws of logic!

I guess you just have to consider the evidence and make a judgement as to what the most likely outcome will be - but there are of course no guarantees when dealing with bees.

It is a difficult call deciding whether your bees are going to swarm or supercede. If you think it's supercedure and your're right, then happy days! If you think it's supercedure and you get it wrong, you will almost certainly loose a swarm.

If you have a suspected supercedure situation is there any way to avoid losing a swarm if you get it wrong?

 

[Juststarting]

SUpersedure and future hive management

Can anyone point me in the direction of EVIDENCE BASED research about supersedure?

I have been looking at all the anecdotal information about supersedure and its "apparent" increase and replacement of queens that seem to laying well (in keepers view) and was wondering if by avoiding breeding from swarmy bees we were selecting for bees that are more likely to supersede, perhaps to the point that they do this even if the queen is not failing. If this were the case then should we adopt different management techniques rather than always let them supersede.

The alternative view I have seen postulated is that queens are getting poorer and therefore being replaced more often.

My own experience was that one of my hives possibly tried to supersede last year but was stopped by me AS ing them, the queen went on to be prolific this year, but has now been superseded (3yrs old so I let them this year).


I realise that I have very little experience in terms of bees and would really like to see what current research there is in this area.

 

[Busybee123]

Can anyone point me in the direction of EVIDENCE BASED research about supersedure?

I've been looking for the same information and so far have not come up with anything helpful.

If you think you have supercedure then the "state of the art" procedure seems to be to leave them alone and keep your fingers crossed!

 

[Poly Hive]

I very much doubt there is evidence as such if you mean a neat little paper by a PHD grad.

However there is a mass of anecdotal evidence which exists including mine as I had a very distinct sup strain of bees.

a friend of mine had one instance where the sup had lasted 18 months, backed by clipped and marked queens. A very experienced Bee Farmer at that so I believe him implicitly.

I believe it is more common than many realise as most do not mark and clip so are unaware it has happened.

PH

 

[Busybee123]

I very much doubt there is evidence as such if you mean a neat little paper by a PHD grad.

However there is a mass of anecdotal evidence which exists including mine as I had a very distinct sup strain of bees.

a friend of mine had one instance where the sup had lasted 18 months, backed by clipped and marked queens. A very experienced Bee Farmer at that so I believe him implicitly.

I believe it is more common than many realise as most do not mark and clip so are unaware it has happened.

PH

PH, anecdotal eveidence is perfectably valid - but there's not much documented evidence of any kind out there that I can find. I found an article on inducing supercedure on Dave Cushman's web site which involved inserting a "protected" queen cell into a queenright colony, and an account of another (IMHO unethical) method of inducing supercedure by purposefully damaging the queen.

Perhaps you would be good enough to share your experience of supercedure?

When you find queen cells, how do you come to the conclusion that they are supercedure cells and therefore make the decision NOT to do an AS and to leave them there?

The books mostly agree that the signs of supercedure are a small number of queen cells in the central area of a frame late in the season (July/August), but is that all we have to go on or is there any way to be more confident in correctly identifying supercedure?

Is there any way of managing the supercedure process (and minimising the downside if the bees end up swarming)?

BTW in the case of your friend, do you mean to say that there were 2 queens in his colony, for 18 months?

If supercedure is more common than we all think it is (and I have no reason to disagree), then I assume that we may well prevent it from taking place in many cases simply because of the way we are deal with queen cells (i.e. doing an AS).

 

[Hebeegeebee]

"If you have a suspected supercedure situation is there any way to avoid losing a swarm if you get it wrong?"

Clip the wing of the queen that's being superceded. Result = no loss of swarm. If you mess up the clipping it's not a major disaster if you have a queencell in the hive.

 

[Poly Hive]

I thought I had made it clear. In the hive in question on a bee farm where the order of the day is clear marking and clipping the sup lasted for 18 months yes.

I took my bees to the heather in July and stopped inspections at that point.

All queens clipped and marked.

In spring there would be a good 40% of unmarked and un clipped queens.

I ran a considerable number of 2 and three year old queens as I knew that on average they would sup not swarm.

Plus I was looking for longevity hoping it would translate into longer working lives for the foragers.

PH

 

[Busybee123]

Clip the wing of the queen that's being superceded. Result = no loss of swarm. If you mess up the clipping it's not a major disaster if you have a queencell in the hive.

Very good point!

I never thought of that!

D'oh!

 

[keithgrimes]

thread hijacked again

 

[Busybee123]

thread hijacked again

I'm very sorry Keith!

 

[IPMoody]

When you find queen cells, how do you come to the conclusion that they are supercedure cells and therefore make the decision NOT to do an AS and to leave them there?

Is there any harm in AS-ing them anyway? Surely better that than risk losing half your bees?