Swarmed Hive No Queen

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corrado608

New Bee
Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
12
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Location
uk
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
1
Dispite regular inspections, one of my hives has swarmed taking the queen with them. I have inspected it and found 3 sealed queen cells and one in the process of being sealed.

There appears to be plenty of bees and stores left behind, do I now let nature take its course and let the new queen emerge and distroy the remaining qeen cells, or do I split the colony giving me two smaller ones to build up. If so how is the best way to go about this ?
 
Doing it before it swarmed would have made 2 decent colonies. Now each one would be about a quarter of the original colony!

Only you know the size of the colony now. But it seems your colony count is wrong, too. As you have another colony at least, you could bolster the new colonies with frames of hatching brood, if these other colonies are strong enough.

If they were just on a brood and not much else when they swarmed, your new colonies are no better than nucs but with the disadvantage of no more brood 'going into the pipe-line' for a while.

Not sure what 'regular' meant but you should have observed queen cells in the making at the last inspection, if weekly.

One colony? Remove the capped queen cells, leaving the open one as you know it has a larva in it.

Two colonies? Leave the open cell in one colony and the two capped in the weaker half (less likely to throw a cast swarm) Treat the capped cells very gently until a day or so before they are expected to hatch. Remember flying bees will return to base. I would likely move one half to another site to prevent foragers returning. Ymmv.
If putting them in brood boxes partition off for warmth, in other words treat as a nuc. Unless of course they were on double brood!

Regards, RAB
 
I would likely move one half to another site to prevent foragers returning. Ymmv.
If putting them in brood boxes partition off for warmth, in other words treat as a nuc. Unless of course they were on double brood!

Regards, RAB

"Ymmv" - typo, or a new acronym wot I have not come across?
 
as in "your opinion might be different?"
 
as in "your opinion might be different?"
Yes - but
More - Your experience might be different......
ie Although it works (for me) it might not for you
(or in this case you might choose a different option)
 
Cheers. Another thing learnt.......
 

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