Swarm After Nuc

[Moonglow]

On Saturday I split a colony and made up a nuc the colony had approx 3 Q C, this morning( Monday ) about 11.30 there was a swarm on the front of the hive and the clipped queen on the grass ,I managed to catch her and put her back into the hive with a Q X on the bottom of the brood box,there is a super on top with pulled out foundation but not full with Q X on top of brood box
My question is ,is this the best thing to do ,if yes any idea how long I should keep on the bottom Q X as of course we will have a bit of a traffic jam with Drones, I double checked the hive there are a few play cells ,but no qc with anything in

 

[Mike a]

If she was put back into the same hive she will try to leave again, the QX is likely to be a waste of time as she would of been slimmed down to enable her to fly if she had not been clipped and the QX will only prevent any drones from entering or leaving the hive.

You would of been better off putting her into a new hive or nuc along with the swarm which would of solved their need to swarm.

My guess is they will try again to swarm again very soon.

 

[Moonglow]

Mike
Thanks for the info, so am I wrong to think that they will only swarm if there is a qc in situ
also maybe I would have been better off doing a artificial swarm rather than making up a nuc, I thought that with a lot of new foundation and plenty of room they would give up that idea they are only on 4 frames of brood ,

 

[Finman]

.
Now make a false swarm hive on the old site of the híve and move the brood hive 10 feet.

 

[Finman]

Mike
Thanks for the info, so am I wrong to think that they will only swarm if there is a qc in situ
also maybe I would have been better off doing a artificial swarm rather than making up a nuc, I thought that with a lot of new foundation and plenty of room they would give up that idea they are only on 4 frames of brood ,

It does not go that way. When bees start to swarm, they will not give up.

 

[Peter Cox]

On Saturday I split a colony and made up a nuc the colony had approx 3 Q C, this morning( Monday ) about 11.30 there was a swarm on the front of the hive and the clipped queen on the grass ,I managed to catch her and put her back into the hive with a Q X on the bottom of the brood box,there is a super on top with pulled out foundation but not full with Q X on top of brood box
My question is ,is this the best thing to do ,if yes any idea how long I should keep on the bottom Q X as of course we will have a bit of a traffic jam with Drones, I double checked the hive there are a few play cells ,but no qc with anything in

Better to put the clipped queen in the nuc you made and move the frame with the queen cells from the nuc back into the old hive.
Just like an artificial swarm, and just what they wanted to do in the first place

 

[Finman]

Better to put the clipped queen in the nuc you made and move the frame with the queen cells from the nuc back into the old hive.
Just like an artificial swarm, and just what they wanted to do in the first place

That is a just an opposite way than it should be

1) Queen should continue laying and brood production. It happens best with lots of workers. ---> foragers for main yield.

2) Make a false swarm and bees feel that they have swarmed and they start to draw foundations wit laying queen

3) If you destroy queen cells, bees start to make new. It is waste of time and nothing happens. There is often a hidden queen cells soemwhere and swarm often succeed to escape. You loose your swarm if you continue palying and the hive will be out of mind soon.

 

[Hombre]

. . . the QX is likely to be a waste of time as she would of been slimmed down to enable her to fly if she had not been clipped and the QX will only prevent any drones from entering or leaving the hive . . .

In point of fact HM may well be slimmed down to fly, but the chitin of the abdomen doesn't shrink and this is what a Qx is supposed to prevent passing from one side to the other.

I'm with Finman on this one.

 

[OXFORDBEE]

.. the chitin of the abdomen doesn't shrink and this is what a Qx is supposed to prevent passing from one side to the other...

This depends on whether or not your queen is skinny!

 

[Mike a]

In point of fact HM may well be slimmed down to fly, but the chitin of the abdomen doesn't shrink and this is what a Qx is supposed to prevent passing from one side to the other.

I'm with Finman on this one.

Your right the QX is meant to stop the queen from passing through it but I've heard an experienced beek tell his story of a large swarm he collected and put into a full size hive with a QX beneath the brood chamber and the very next day they swarmed.

He collected them again and re-hived them (same set up) but moved them to a new apiary well away from the first and they swarmed again. So he changed the QX incase the first had been damaged and the same again. This went on for a week with one day of poor weather when they didn't swarm.

The final option was to put a frame of stores which had been uncapped (not wise as it wasn't theirs but they were by now very hungry and tetchy) and a frame of brood (various stages) and he removed the QX and they stayed.

So now when he collects a swarm he always puts them into a hive with fresh undrawn frames and a frame of brood and he clips the queen after a few weeks when the colony is settled and the queen has had time to lay a few frames worth of brood.

I asked how did the queen get through the QX and his reply was because she wanted to and she had been slimmed down enough to pass through it almost as if they had a crowbar.

 

[Hivemaker.]

If they can get through an excluder,then they can get into the supers,must be really small queen to do this as its the thorax which will not fit through an excluder, and the thorax does not shrink. This is why many mating nuc's have an excluder disc on them to prevent mated queens from absconding,which includes virgins if you want to keep them in the nuc to prevent them from flying to mate.

 

[Finman]

.
When we speak about normal bekeeping, and onto where beekeeping is based, the queen does not go through the excluder.

 

[Moonglow]

So Mike A was right, she did get out of the QX so I followed Finmans advice and I did a A/S But she is out again ,so I have decided to merge the original brood with this a/s and do away with Queen Houdini, but will it be ok to move the Original brood back to where it was originally and then but the a/s brood on top