Swarming with no reason?

[susbees]

Are we all sitting comfortably, now I'll begin...

Last year I was called to look at some bees who had been living, very probably continuously, behind some shuttering on the outside of a "simple dwelling" three feet from the entrance door and at head height. Sometimes bees got into the house, occasionally they got stung, and the inhabitants now felt the bees had to go. They agreed to put up a scaffold (he was supposedly a builder) and to make good. Sorted.

A couple of months and a prime and sizeable cast on the same June day went by. Early March this year we heard the scaffold was finally up...and decided to remove the bees this last Monday before it got too busy. The combs were sizeable (see photo) with plenty stores towards the back of the classic sized cavity, an 8x4" patch of perfect sealed brood and another couple of similar sized patches of mostly eggs. The brood was transferred into a brood box but the bees proved unwilling to follow suit. And there were a lot of them. Cutting a long story very short, the bees made the box and the cavity was sprayed with the local 69p aftershave which bees loathe and we returned home.

The bees were placed in semi-isolation. Tuesday mid-morning I sauntered down to the apiary to check on them to find unusual levels of activity near the blackberry thicket 50m in front of the hive (a favourite swarm spot). Sure enough a swarm formed....from the incoming cut-out.

So, she swarmed or absconded and is now being eaten out of a queen cage with a QE under the box (having been found wandering about outside the skep).

Questions:
1. why were most of the bees when recovered chaining extensively when there was nowhere in the cavity to build more wax and all looked in great condition? There was also oodles of laying space and plenty stores and no outward signs of varroa damage (monitoring count).

2. why do we teach that queens can't fly when not slimmed for swarming or virgins/newly mated? This is a big moderately in-lay queen. I have also had a clipped queen (half of one wing) fly round the side of a house 100m through a tiny knot-hole into a siding of a garage and form a new colony.

3. Perhaps it's the sidings - magical properties I expect

 

[BeeNice]

There may have been 2 queens? that have overwintered, with the warmer weather and the change of location could have been the reason to go?

 

[itma]

A couple of months and a prime and sizeable cast on the same June day went by.

That sounds a bit strange to me.
Should have been a week apart - if from the same colony.

Or was the swarm 'collected' and removed before dusk?

 

[susbees]

That sounds a bit strange to me.
Should have been a week apart - if from the same colony.

Or was the swarm 'collected' and removed before dusk?

We collected both so done properly. Poor weather which you will remember we had most of last year so swarms were held back in the hive.

 

[J.M.Learner]

very interesting I don't know the answer but maybe a queen excluder at the bottom of the brood box may have prevented that... or did I see you still had it in the skep?

 

[beeno]

Hi susbees,
Well, the same would have happened to my cut out today if it weren't for the fact that I had her caged (first queen ever spotted on the sheet walking in). I guess an existing colony behaves the same as a swarm, they abscond if they think they can find a better place to live? This queen only had a small patch of brood and the colony had outgrown its present cavity so maybe they would have gone in due course anyhow?

 

[susbees]

very interesting I don't know the answer but maybe a queen excluder at the bottom of the brood box may have prevented that... or did I see you still had it in the skep?

Didn't expect a cut-out to abscond as it had unsealed brood in the box...but she was caged from outside the skep and hung in it until her swarm settled again....then caged in the hive with a QE under the box.

I put a QE under all "normal" swarms for 48 hours as standard or a strip on the entrance if in a nuc.