Swarm under OMF

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Sep 7, 2015
Messages
791
Reaction score
59
Location
East Yorkshire
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
16
Found what looks like a swarm under the OMF. The Q in the hive was clipped and I assumed they had tried to swarm but the Q didn’t make it and the swarm ended up below the OMF. Yet on checking the hive, she was in there… could she have crawled back in or is it another hives swarm… seems a bit of a coincidence. Inspected 6 days ago, saw Q then and no QC’s. Put the ‘swarm’ into a nuc.
Odd event anyone else had a swarm under a hive or any other explanation. I had taken 2 supers off but gave in exchange 2 extracted supers, so hive had space.
89e694c1-8cec-49b4-8cdf-305f9f07756b-jpeg.31983
 
Have they made comb on the underneath?
I'd have tipped them into the hive first checking there was no queen in there
 
I think Blackcloud may be right - I read it that the queen was in the hive. Need to check what’s happening in the nuc.
 
Look in the bunch of bees under the omf to make sure there isn’t a queen in the bunch of bees under the omf Before tipping them in the hive they were under
Also check they are not underflying by missing the entrance. Once you get enough bees under there they start to think of it as part of the hive and can build comb just as they would above a queen excluder. It is the main fault with OMF floors. You need to put something down the front to stop them underflying.
 
Odd event anyone else had a swarm under a hive
yes, a few times, picked up a swarm with a marked queen which had settled on a nuc with a newly mated queen in once and had swarms settle on the front of establisked hives with multiple supers on.
 
I've just had the same thing, it appears there was a queen with it going to check today as they where very agitated when I removed the cluster and comb.
Interested to hear what's happened with yours, I'm pretty sure I've missed a queen cell when knocking them down to one after loosing a swarm.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top