Swarming prevention

[SireeDubs]

Hello,
Advice needed please. I bought an overwintered nuc, with 2013 queen. All looks great. Very strong, no sign of varroa etc.

I only have the one colony (lost old one last October - this forum was great fro advice, so I thank everyone who made me want to get another colony!). The colony, as I've said, is very strong. As they got to 7-8 frames of brood, I added a super (3-4 weeks ago) and all well.
Now, there are a few queen cups, unfilled, and they are absolutely PACKED with brood and almost no food (though super is well on the way).
Apologies for asking, as I'm sure many of you are sick of answering newbie questions, but I would really appreciate advice on what I think are my options (I am thinking that a swarm is imminent- I may be wrong)...

1. AS (or demaree? - have never done this method).
2. Add brood space.

I'm tending to the AS in next couple of days. From prior experience, I know never to be surprised by bees, so I'm thinking the fact that the queen is young is no guarantee against swarms.
I have huge amounts of blossom/nectar sources in the garden/surroundings at present, so I feel they'd both build up quickly.

Any tips/opinions very much appreciated.
T

 

[enrico]

Two hives are better than one so AS this year and demaree next year. I wait until I have charged queen cells before I AS. Demaree is better BEFORE queen cells charged! AS is a solution to a queen cell, demaree is an attempt at prevention by never letting the queen get to that point!
E

 

[richardbees]

Based on your very good description I suggest you split this w/e anyway....
....carry out the same AS procedure as if there was a charged Q cell.

 

[SireeDubs]

Thanks both of you. Will start putting my hive together later and look for a good weather window later in the week.
T

 

[Finman]

.
2 box hive is not strong. It is normal small size hive which many have just after winter.

When it has no queen milk in queen cups, there is no reason to split it or to do do demaree tricks.
Empty queen cups mean nothing.

Give more boxes and let it grow as big as possible.
When queen cells appear, then do the AS. Early splitting only ruins the build up of the colony.

If you add next foundation boxes, perhaps the colony does not try to swarm..

It seems that you have good quality queen if the hive is full of brood.
Give another brood box under the first box and the colony can enlarge by itself downstairs.

 

[SireeDubs]

Thanks Finman. The bees have built up from a 6 frame nuc to full standard national in one month. If I add another brood box for space, would you say this is too much space, or just use a super? Considering the quick growth, maybe a bb?
Thanks

 

[beeno]

Hi Finman,
You have just confirmed what I would do - double brood next warm couple of days!

 

[Skyhook]

Thanks Finman. The bees have built up from a 6 frame nuc to full standard national in one month. If I add another brood box for space, would you say this is too much space, or just use a super? Considering the quick growth, maybe a bb?
Thanks

Not done double brood or brood and a half myself, but there seems to be a lot in favour of double, in that you can interchange frames if required, and much simpler when you do come to split, demaree or AS.

.

 

[user 6228]

Thanks Finman. The bees have built up from a 6 frame nuc to full standard national in one month. If I add another brood box for space, would you say this is too much space, or just use a super? Considering the quick growth, maybe a bb?
Thanks

An extra broodbox underneath doesnt change the nest temperatures up or down. In the wild i.e. a tree nest cavity, the average height is 1.5 metres tall. Which means I agree with finman (what is the world coming to )

 

[Elaine]

Just rememebr that looking for the queen in a double brood box full of bees can be a bit of a challenge But - I can confirm that the queen cells we found in our double brood box were all at the bottom of the upper frames, so the bees were taking notice of that section of the book - but when we tried to do an AS using a Taranov board - they didn't seem to have read that bit! But hopefully we have succeeded in convincing them they have swarmed - and ended up with the right bees in the two hives

 

[Skyhook]

- but when we tried to do an AS using a Taranov board - they didn't seem to have read that bit! But hopefully we have succeeded in convincing them they have swarmed - and ended up with the right bees in the two hives

I've always thought that taranov seemed an odd method. Pagden and most others at least try to reproduce something like a swarm, whereas Taranov, where the queen ends up with the non-flying bees, seems to do the opposite.

.