Swarming problem

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Joined
Jul 6, 2011
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Location
folkestone
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
n/a
Just a quick question..
I went to inspect one of my hives on sunday, it has been doubled up for the last 2 weeks,when I inspected it there was roughly 8-12 sealed queen cells on the bottom of the top box,I decided to take all the frames which had cells on & left them in a nuc with some bees and left it on the original site for the flying bees to return to..I then took the rest of them and the original queen to another site 3miles+ away and re sited them, I took a second nuc from them and left them with mainly stores but took most of the brood in the nuc..went to look at them yesterday and they had swarmed anyway.I found them in a bush roughly 40 ft away re captured them and re hived them..
Should I have done an AS on them either yesterday or sunday to try and stop them from swarming or when I first discovered them or would this not of made any difference..?
 
an A/S is best done on the first day you find queen cells, pref before they are sealed.
with 25 - 30 hives I'd have thought you would only leave one cell after the A/S.
 
Sorry forgot to say tha only left 2 lrg cells on the sheets and took a couple for the other nuc..Even if you discover they are sealed is it still worth doing an AS.?
 
25 - 30 colonies hmm...

You left a bunch of sealed cells in a crowed nuc and are surprised it swarmed?

I seriously suggest if you are to have any unswarmed colonies soon some reading of how to perform an AS might be a very good idea.

Look at Pagden on Dave Cushmans site. Failing that please buy a good book.

PH
 
Well, I read as though the full box had swarmed - obviously some ambiguity?

Sooo, mainly brood in a full box with the queen and them in swarming mode? Not surprising they just carried on and swarmed.
 

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