Swarm making QC's

[BillyGoat]

Had the benefit of a large caste/medium prime landing on tree next to my hives last weekend. Went through my hives and all present and correct so looks like a gift.

Hived last Sunday with a frame of brood from another hive to stop them absconding. Checked today and found several QC's on the brood frame and no sign of a Queen.

1. Was it a mistake to put in a brood frame with unsealed brood?

2. Would they make QC's if there was still a Virgin Queen present?

3. Should I leave the QC's and let them sort it out or cull to one?

I am wondering if the unsealed brood / QC's has resulted in the Queen absconding with a caste, leaving majority behind to look after brood?

 

[oliver90owner]

1 No. Cast swarms are more likely to abscond than primes, but even primes will go sometimes.

2 I would not expect that, but...was it a cast? Sometimes they might be looking for the first opportunity to supercede - so do these look like swarm, emergency or supercedure cells?

3)Cull to one, if you think it worth it. Depends on whether you really need another (weak) colony, viability of remaining bees, expected time of wasp attacks, etc. I would be checking with another 'test frame', in another week's time and likely uniting with another colony which would be expendible (suspect health-status at this time), if found to be lacking.

absconding is the whole colony leaving for some reason.

RAB

 

[BillyGoat]

QC's look like emergency cells to me.

Will cull to one cell and see how they manage until health status established.

Thanks RAB