Dadnlad
House Bee
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2009
- Messages
- 354
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Deepest Hertfordshire
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- A few and some more
During my weekly inspection on Sunday, I discovered 6-8 half built swarm cells in one of my colonies (I had added a 2nd brood box midway through the previous week, but I think they must already have been into swarm mode)
With a couple of days in hand, I withdrew to consider options. It is a reasonably strong colony with last years marked queen, laying in 9-10 standard brood frames, and two thirds of a super capped so far
I opted, instead of splitting the workforce with an AS (which I usually do so new territory for me), to remove the queen to a nuc with capped brood/food/foundation and no QC's, and to remove the most advanced swarm cells in the hive, leaving it with a large workforce and fresh eggs to pick from to raise a new queen
Question is, would there be any advantage in culling any QC's in the hive once all eggs are too old to raise queens from, then once the colony is hopelessly Q- reuniting with the original queen's nuc ?
Would it mean less of a brood break for the colony, or are they likely to revert back to swarm mode ?
With a couple of days in hand, I withdrew to consider options. It is a reasonably strong colony with last years marked queen, laying in 9-10 standard brood frames, and two thirds of a super capped so far
I opted, instead of splitting the workforce with an AS (which I usually do so new territory for me), to remove the queen to a nuc with capped brood/food/foundation and no QC's, and to remove the most advanced swarm cells in the hive, leaving it with a large workforce and fresh eggs to pick from to raise a new queen
Question is, would there be any advantage in culling any QC's in the hive once all eggs are too old to raise queens from, then once the colony is hopelessly Q- reuniting with the original queen's nuc ?
Would it mean less of a brood break for the colony, or are they likely to revert back to swarm mode ?
