Supercedure and splitting hives

[Reiver]

Thought I would share my recent experience as it may help others, either to do the same (if it works) or to avoid the issue (if it fails).
I am also open to suggestions if you think I should be doing things differently.
But first let me take you back a few days......

Thursday, 4th June,
Conducted an inspection on my only hive (bought in April from a local beekeeper who had over wintered a nuc created last year).
Hive is on two brood boxes with one super.
Not much activity in the super but both brood boxes had 6-7 frames with brood and stores plus 1-2 frames of just maturing honey.
Spotted the queen and saw lots of cells with larvae at different stages.
So far so good.

Thursday, 11th June,
During this weeks inspection I spotted a single occupied supercedure cell (in the top third of the frame) in both the lower brood box and the upper. Best guess they were about 7or 8 days old so I must have missed them starting last week
By this time there were about 8 frames with brood, and 2 frames of honey in each box. Still no real activity in the super.
I did not see the queen, but noted plenty of larvae but did not spot eggs.
Decided to split the hive.

Friday, 12th June,
Limited by lack of hive boxes, I could only split the hive into two separate brood chambers with one super above each, no queen excluder.
Noted that both supercedure cells had been capped off.
Placed the upper brood box onto a separate stand about four feet away from original site ( best I could do at the time)
My figuring is that majority of bees in the top brood box would be hive bees and the foraging bees would return to the hive in the original location.

Sunday, 14th June,
Observation of the hives showed good level of activity in and out of the original hive, but also a couple of bees flew into the 'new' hive.

Hoping I have done the right thing, I will continue to observe the hives during this week and do an inspection next Saturday when I hope to find a new queen in each.

Any thoughts, advice etc would be welcome.
Thanks for reading all this.

 

[oliver90owner]

The box in the original position will have most flying bees because they will have 'gone home' from the relocated box.

There will now be an increasing number of flying bees emanating from the moved box. These will orientate to that box and so return to it.

If, however, there are bees going from one box to the other, you may have a problem known as silent robbing.

There is a small risk that if the queen is in the box with most flying bees, the bees could convert from supercedure to swarming.

Personally, if the queen had recently laid up nigh on two boxes and there was no apparent reason for supercedure, I would prefer to retain her genes, if the bees are of good temperament, etc. But your choice with your limited equipment.

 

[snelgrove]

I notice your Scottish Borders, I wouldn't recommend double brood in your are same as mine, that's why no interest in supers, takes a good queen to fI'll a double brood in our locality. Supersedure cells I doubt more like an attempt at swarming, bees wouldn't supersede a queen that has built up as well as your hive. Done the right thing splitting the hive but you need to ascertain which has the queen by spotting eggs or the queen. don't expect a young queen laying usually takes longer

 

[Reiver]

Thanks for the response oliver90owner
Could you expand on your last paragraph please. If supercedure is taking place then surely it would be retaining her genes, or am I missing something?
The queen had laid well in both boxes yes, but I have not seen her in the last two inspections and she was very easy to spot previously. So I think that she has gone from the hive, one way or another.

 

[Reiver]

Hi snelgrove
Double brood boxes is a common thing round here and further North. We have very good foraging available so hopefully will be able to sustain them. I will have to see how things go,
I used to be based in Northumberland where they only seemed to use single boxes. Perhaps it was the east coast weather influence?
I know that standard practice is to split the two's into two singles at this time of the year and AS then later on combine back to doubles to overwinter.

 

[snelgrove]

Hi snelgrove
Double brood boxes is a common thing round here and further North. We have very good foraging available so hopefully will be able to sustain them. I will have to see how things go,
I used to be based in Northumberland where they only seemed to use single boxes. Perhaps it was the east coast weather influence?
I know that standard practice is to split the two's into two singles at this time of the year and AS then later on combine back to doubles to overwinter.

have you extracted any honey? double is fine in any part of the country but it's more about weather conditions than forage. I have tried double brood and got no honey just strong colonies and no honey. I use 14 x12 and find that supers are filled much quicker.

 

[Reiver]

No I hadn't extracted any honey yet, as this was a new colony (and my first in this area) I was letting them build up to be as strong as possible for the coming winter. I was looking to take the honey they were just finishing and force them to use the super, when the supercedure started so my plans changed.

 

[snelgrove]

No I hadn't extracted any honey yet, as this was a new colony (and my first in this area) I was letting them build up to be as strong as possible for the coming winter. I was looking to take the honey they were just finishing and force them to use the super, when the supercedure started so my plans changed.

letting them build up for the winter it's only June. forcing them to uses a super. supersedure in the swarming season. [

 

[oliver90owner]

Two things.

First the genes. Half of the new workers would only have half this queen's genes. If these next two queens happen to be bad tempered, you would have little choice but to import some new queens - or put up with the temperament!

Second, the bees will go into winter with winter bees from eggs laid late in the season, so uniting strong colonies towards the autumn is a waste of resources - as the bees going into the winter per colony will be no, or little, more in number whether united or not.

 

[Reiver]

Two things.

First the genes. Half of the new workers would only have half this queen's genes. If these next two queens happen to be bad tempered, you would have little choice but to import some new queens - or put up with the temperament!

Second, the bees will go into winter with winter bees from eggs laid late in the season, so uniting strong colonies towards the autumn is a waste of resources - as the bees going into the winter per colony will be no, or little, more in number whether united or not.

Ok I get that, but may have no choice as the original queen does not seem to be around. Will check for her again this week.
As for uniting the hives, I agree if they are both strong then no point, but if one or both is weak.....or if you need to replace an ageing queen. Hopefully neither case will be what I end up with.

 

[oliver90owner]

Two colonies into winter and one loss means 50% survival - you will still be a beekeeper in spring.

One colony and one loss is 100% loss and 0% survival rates.

Look for eggs before looking for the queen - easier.

 

[Reiver]

Looked for eggs/queen yesterday and found neither. Still a healthy number of bees in both boxes.
As snelgrove intimated though in spite of those two queen cells both being in the 'classic' supercedure positions on the frames the bees were actually preparing for swarming. In both boxes they have added further queen cells at the bottom of the frames.
I am going to remove all queen cells, bar the original one I found in each box hopefully that will prompt them to settle with the one queen. Leaving the original queen cell should mean the emerging queens will be of better quality, the newly formed queen cells are more likely to have been formed around older larvae I think.
The hive with the larger number of bees may need to be split further as they could still decide to swarm so I will consider starting a nuc from them. I am rapidly running out of hardware but will try my best.

Thanks for your comments to date.