Urgent. Artifical swarm without finding the Queen?

[JohnRoss]

Hi all,
I have done an inspection and found sealed queen cells. I can't find the current queen. She is clipped and marked. Does any one know how to do an artifical swarm without finding the queen?

 

[johncorne]

If they are sealed, she has probably gone already (or at least tried to).

Jc

 

[rwestoll]

Move the hive to one side. Put a new brood box with empty comb or foundation and one frame of stores, onto the old site..Shake all the bees into the new box. Put on qex and the old brood box / supers on top. The young bees will go up onto the brood , so after 24 hours or so you can move this box away, or leave the box underneath to get the benefit of the honey flow This is a Demaree. if you make a Demaree you must destroy all queen cells now and again in about 7 days time. if you plan to make an AS, don't shake the bees off the frames with queen cels,brush them off. It's getting quite late to grow and mate a new queen, so recommend Demaree and reunite when all danger of swarming is over..whenever that might be!

 

[dickbowyer]

If the weather has been fine and these are sealed swarm cells, not very few mid frame supersedure cells, they will will have tried to swarm and clipped queen dead near the hive stand. Need to go into "prevent caste swarm" mode in that case.

 

[Chris B]

Clipped queens tend to stick around, even to the point of emerging virgins sometimes.

How many queen cells? If only 2 or 3 it might be supersedure, in which case just leave them to it.

If definitely swarm cells, one option is to do an artificial swarm as normal in every respect except substitute a sealed queen cell for the queen you can't find.

 

[Chris B]

continued.....

option 2: are there still eggs? If yes then you can simply destroy all queen cells. They may well give up swarming. If they try again, you have another 10 days to take action. This is the benefit of a clipped queen - you can't lose a swarm with her, only virgins she produces.

option 3: put out a bait hive. You may catch a swarm, or you may not. Either way it has no impact on this year's honey crop.

 

[dickbowyer]

As recently posted, this will be helpful http://pembsbeekeepers.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/wag_queen_cellseng.pdf

 

[JohnRoss]

Hi All, thanks for the replies.

There are eggs. I basically put a new brood chamber with new foundation on the old stand. I then brushed all bees from the old brood chamber into this new brood chamber. (which they didn't like at all and alot crawled over the edge and all over the outside of the hive)

I then put on the queen excluder and the super and finally I put the old brood chamber on top.

There are now two sealed queen cells in the brood chamber and about 5 unsealed ones.

Am I right in understanding that tomorrow afternoon I move the old brood chamber complete with brood and stores over a meter or so. Then place a feeder on the new brood chamber now sitting on the old site?

Should I kill all but one queen cell given that I may have damaged some in the commotion today?

 

[JohnRoss]

Also, how do I know if the old queen is alive in the new hive or not?

 

[rwestoll]

Eggs

 

[kighill]

Here is another idea for finding a mated Queen (and most of the drones)

Remove brood box etc.

Place another brood box and floor onto original site with Queen Excluder on top of Brood box.

Place empty super on top of Queen Excluder.

Shake all bees into super.

All the workers should go down into brood box drones/queen stay on top of QE.

Replace brood etc into original brood box etc.

Sounds complicated but is fairly easy.

Option 2. Get another beekeeper to assist in checking for queen and if not found do the artificial swarm.

 

[Headnavigator]

As recently posted, this will be helpful http://pembsbeekeepers.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/wag_queen_cellseng.pdf

Really useful, I must have missed the reference first time, thank you.

 

[kronkie]

This is a useful thread for me, as newbee I only see the Q occasionally and the Demaree method sounds good (never heard of it before now) for swarm control but am I reading it wrong as it keeps saying that you have to find the Q.

 

[m100]

Shake all the bees into the new box.

Shaking a frame with a queen cell on has a high chance of killing the queen larva / pupa

 

[rwestoll]

m100 - I covered that later in my message. If you make a Demaree you destroy the queen cells anyway.

 

[rwestoll]

Kronkie - You do not have to find the queen, since you shake all the bees into the bottom box, the queen must be in there. So unless she absconds you definitely have her. There is perhaps a danger that she will go if there are sealed Q cells in the top box, before you do the Demaree, but if you destroy them and then again a week later, they cannot make any more.

The idea of the Demaree is that the Old Queen makes her new nest and the workers continue to forage, whilst at the same time the young 'queenless' bees rear the old brood, so there is no gap in production. Once the brood is all hatched and the old queen has new brood in the lower box, they can be united. Hopefully swarming time is over.

Apparently it is not a good idea to do a Demaree if there is little in the way of stores coming in. But it seems a good idea doesn't it.

 

[JohnRoss]

What I did today was move the original brood box over a few feet, I went through it and knocked off all the sealed queen cells, I left three unsealed ones which I can reduce to one later, (Just incase one was killed in the commotion yeaterday). I also transfered one frame which has eggs on it into the new brood box. I did this incase the old queen has fallen out of the hive or has been killed so they can make a queen if they have to.

I hope it will work out. I only had one colony.

Also thanks for the idea to find the queen.