third swarm

[sahtlinurk]

Hi!

just picked up my third swarm this spring.
the last one was a small one so can i join the one i had today with the small one? spray with syrup and use QX before joining?

Cheers,
Lauri

 

[VEG]

Best to remove one of the queens before uniting in case both get damaged during a scuffle some queens are small and can get through qx.

 

[sahtlinurk]

was a bit windy , but managed to join those guys, what to do with the young queen? just slaughter or does anybody needs it? keeping it in the glass jar at the moment..

Lauri

 

[sahtlinurk]

Really wierd stuff happening. In the mornig just went to have look what is going on and in front of my nose one bee dragged a young queen out from the hive. poor thing was dead. And i am sure i took queen out from swarmbefore i joined because it sits in my glass jar eating honey...

So opened the hive in the evening, no sign of queen or fresh eggs. took the queen from the glass jar, made a little hollow cube from the foundation, queen in, sealed and few small holes in. Put it in the hive just before darkness, after an hour whent to check, bees around my cube, hopefully trying to get the queen out..

What a mess..

 

[Mosquito]

How did you join the swarm with the hive??
Did you use paper???
If you did not use paper they will fight and your queen may off been killed in the fighting.

 

[sahtlinurk]

I sprayed both colonies with flavoured sugar syrup and then joined them. there was no fighting at all. Now in the morning took my queen "cage" out - they had made nice holes in it and the queen was released. If they would have wanted to kill the queen they would have done it just stinging it through the wall of my cage i think. So far so good. I know it is a bit different from conventional bee keeping practice but..

 

[Widdershins]

Sounds like you did well in the end, conventional or not! Hope things settle down for you now...

 

[VEG]

Good job you kept the other queen alive

 

[jon]

A cast can have several virgin queens especially if you didn't remove all but one queen cells and check 4-5 days later for more emergency cells so be careful about introducing another queen. You will not see eggs for 10 days or more if there is a virgin queen.
My brother housed a swarm one time by smoking it down into the hive body through a queen excluder and there were 4 running around on top of the excluder when he had finished.

 

[Polyanwood]

Is it worth putting a queen excluder uner the brood box for a while when you hive a swarm? At least that way if there is more than one queen they would have to fight it out, hopefully only leaving the stongest, and you wouldn't lose a cast.

What do other people do?

 

[Haughton Honey]

I've heard of this method before. Sounds like quite a good idea to put one on for a few days at least whilst they're being fed.

Any thoughts anyone?

 

[MrTrueman]

Yes I would like to know peoples thoughts on this aswell?

 

[BKF Admin]

Regards using a QE we seem to be running a tandom thread over here

 

[MrTrueman]

Doh, I jumped over that one for some reason.