MandF
Drone Bee
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2009
- Messages
- 1,207
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- London, UK
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 2
A quick question - I know there are several triggers for swarming, and that generally once they have decided to swarm, they need to think they have.
However, if you are sure this is "simply" down to them backfilling the brood nest with honey, ie lack of brood space, will adding more space (a super) and a slight rearrangement of the brood so there are more empty cells within the nest area (not isolated outside a frame of stores) likely defuse the instinct or not?
I have had an A/S going on one of my hives for weeks, latterly with a snelgrove and the original queen on top, waiting for the virgin to start laying and then confirming the brood is ok before uniting. This was the original plan. They had 3 supers on, and initially lots of space in the brood & half due to all the old brood having hatched in the intervening period.
Checked it 2 weekends ago (22nd) to see if the new queen was laying yet, and saw eggs. Checked it on Sunday to see if brood was ok from how capped, and found charged QCs. Because the brood area was otherwise empty up til a week ago, they have been backfilling with nectar & pollen, which I assume is the reason they want to swarm. Again. Only a couple are full, a few were ostenstibly empty apart from some stores around the edge, the rest had nectar here and there. I moved the mostly empty ones to the main brood area.
However, if you are sure this is "simply" down to them backfilling the brood nest with honey, ie lack of brood space, will adding more space (a super) and a slight rearrangement of the brood so there are more empty cells within the nest area (not isolated outside a frame of stores) likely defuse the instinct or not?
I have had an A/S going on one of my hives for weeks, latterly with a snelgrove and the original queen on top, waiting for the virgin to start laying and then confirming the brood is ok before uniting. This was the original plan. They had 3 supers on, and initially lots of space in the brood & half due to all the old brood having hatched in the intervening period.
Checked it 2 weekends ago (22nd) to see if the new queen was laying yet, and saw eggs. Checked it on Sunday to see if brood was ok from how capped, and found charged QCs. Because the brood area was otherwise empty up til a week ago, they have been backfilling with nectar & pollen, which I assume is the reason they want to swarm. Again. Only a couple are full, a few were ostenstibly empty apart from some stores around the edge, the rest had nectar here and there. I moved the mostly empty ones to the main brood area.