Swarm Control without Finding the Queen

[pargyle]

Whilst you are at it ... just check whether any of the queen cells have been vacated because what you assumed was a swarm has all the characteristics of a virgin queen going off on her mating flight so there's a possibility that your original queen HAS swarmed and what you are seeing was the start of a mating flight ... you need to look a bit closer at the queen cells to be sure ...

 

[Swift Nick]

I checked the artificial swarm hive from my recent Wally Shaw modified Snelgrove today and the queen that I located back in that A/S hive on Tuesday was accepted back and laying, hoping yours works out too StephenT.
I will leave the now queenless parent hive for 3 weeks before taking a look.
For me that is two Wally Shaw modified Snelgrove 2’s, they have both had the queen accepted.

Wally Shaw Snelgrove ll (modified) Update- 20 days after switching the queen from the parent colony to the artificial swarm (which accepted the queen back), the parent colony has swarmed. I have got the swarm back, I presume at 20 days & current weather the queen is a virgin
At 20 days past queen removal there shouldn’t be any queen cells left in the parent colony, or could the workers keep a queen in a cell that long past the 14 days?
I will take a look later and release any queens in cells.
If it’s thought to be impossible for any queens to be in cells at day 20 let me know & it will save me disturbing the parent colony.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Wally Shaw Snelgrove ll (modified) Update- 20 days after switching the queen from the parent colony to the artificial swarm (which accepted the queen back), the parent colony has swarmed. I have got the swarm back, I presume at 20 days & current weather the queen is a virgin
At 20 days past queen removal there shouldn’t be any queen cells left in the parent colony, or could the workers keep a queen in a cell that long past the 14 days?
I will take a look later and release any queens in cells.
If it’s thought to be impossible for any queens to be in cells at day 20 let me know & it will save me disturbing the parent colony.

Did you reduce the emergency queen cells in the parent colony after you repatriated the queen?

 

[Swift Nick]

Did you reduce the emergency queen cells in the parent colony after you repatriated the queen?

No I didn’t, the pamphlet said “NB no thinning of queen cells necessary”, maybe I should have reduced to one anyway to be safe. One for the notebook.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Wally has a thing about not reducing Queen Cells - apart from walkaway nucs or nucs frm a Demarree, I always tear the spares down.

 

[Boston Bees]

Wally has a thing about not reducing Queen Cells - apart from walkaway nucs or nucs frm a Demarree, I always tear the spares down.

By walkaway nuc, do you mean a nuc with brood frames and nurse bees in, but no queen, which has been moved to a stand away from the original location so it contains no foragers, and then creates its own queen cells?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

By walkaway nuc, do you mean a nuc with brood frames and nurse bees in, but no queen, which has been moved to a stand away from the original location so it contains no foragers, and then creates its own queen cells?

yes

 

[Swift Nick]

Wally has a thing about not reducing Queen Cells - apart from walkaway nucs or nucs frm a Demarree, I always tear the spares down.

So will I in future, I have just released 3 queens from ripe cells in the swarm hive, one is now in a nuc that was queenless, she was accepted OK, so that was a plus.