Urgent! Inspect immediately after a returned swarm?

[Queen Brenda]

It's as if they knew we were going away in a minute! We had a clipped queen in a 14x12 with plenty of supers. An hour ago a huge swarm emerged and landed in the very top of the neighbours fir tree. We got a spare national and placed it under, in the hope they'd find it. No sooner had we done this than they all returned home.

Should we inspect now, and either kill the poor clipped Q if we find her, or do an AS into the spare hive, now back in our garden? Is it a mistake to go through the frames so soon after a swarm?

Question 2: would the swarm have flown so far (50m and high) without the queen? Do they go off alone and the Q supposed to follow, or does the Q go first? Is this a cast, maybe? What's going on??

 

[Essexgary]

Hi There, I would imagine your clipped queen is running around in the grass somewhere (unable to fly) - the swarm realised they were queenless and went back in. So my guess is you have a queenless colony. I would remove all but one QC and leave them to it.

 

[Queen Brenda]

Thanks Essex gary, I'm going in......

 

[Quis Custodiet]

If you look on the ground around the area where the swarm occurred and also UNDER the hive, there is a very slight chance you will see a small ball around the queen. If you have spare equipment split your hive.

 

[Queen Brenda]

That's exactly what we saw. We scooped and brushed the bees clinging to the bottom of the OMF into a box and left them while we inspected our other hives, intending to put them into another hive but they all went back into the original hive and there's still a ball underneath. We then had to leave them, so I assume she's under there. There were 4 capped QCs all hanging off the different frames, so we have left them to sort themselves out.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

If you leave more than one, chances are as soon as the first virgin is out you'll get a prime swarm headed by her.

 

[Hivemaker.]

If you leave more than one, chances are as soon as the first virgin is out you'll get a prime swarm headed by her.

And quite often, even if only one cell is left, because the swarming impulse is still strong, and has not been satisfied, and the bee numbers are the same, also they have already tried to swarm and failed, because of the clipped queen, so they will still swarm with the single virgin that emerges, often with an even bigger swarm than would normally leave, and thus leaving the rest of the colony hopelessly queenless.

Never trust a virgin.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I never knew that.
So the answer is to split the colony anyway

 

[Gilberdyke John]

If you leave more than one, chances are as soon as the first virgin is out you'll get a prime swarm headed by her.

Prime second attempt headed by a virgin? My understanding is that a prime is headed by the original, mated, matriarch, or have I been wrong all this time?

 

[Fusion_power]

The prime swarm is the first swarm to leave the colony for the season regardless of which queen heads it. It has the bulk of the bees and a huge amount of resources in terms of honey carried to the new location. As noted, if a colony attempts to swarm and returns, the only way to keep them is to do something about the conditions that lead up to swarming. In this case, pulling 3 frames of brood and one queen cell into a new box, placing that box on the old stand, and moving the old queen with the remainder of the colony 30 to 50 feet away will almost guarantee the swarm instinct will be deterred. The only problem I've had doing this is that the old queen will still lay a lot of eggs and within 2 or 3 weeks can have the old hive populous enough to swarm again.

 

[Swarm]

Prime second attempt headed by a virgin? My understanding is that a prime is headed by the original, mated, matriarch, or have I been wrong all this time?

Had that happen during a Baily change.

 

[Cussword]

It seems as stated above, that it is time for you to do a split. If you can find the old queen use her. If not, use the queen cells.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Prime second attempt headed by a virgin? My understanding is that a prime is headed by the original, mated, matriarch, or have I been wrong all this time?

Nope - prime from the Latin is the first 'successful' swarm out whether the Queen is mated or no. - nothing to do with size either


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[midnight sun]

If you leave more than one, chances are as soon as the first virgin is out you'll get a prime swarm headed by her.

I thought we had all this sorted when 'jonnybeegood' had a little 'tate a tate' with several senior members. Seems at the time the
Prime swarm was headed by a mated Queen and the first out.
Prime cast was the first out and headed by a virgin.
subsequent casts would be headed by a virgin.
I'm sure JMB , Oliver90 and Pargyle was in on the discussion.
Or maybe I've read it all wrong.
Happy to be corrected after reading back to Jonnybeegood's thread with you guys.
Perhaps it wants restating with the more experienced members agreeing the categories.

 

[Anduril]

I thought we had all this sorted when 'jonnybeegood' had a little 'tate a tate' with several senior members. Seems at the time the
Prime swarm was headed by a mated Queen and the first out.
Prime cast was the first out and headed by a virgin.
subsequent casts would be headed by a virgin.
I'm sure JMB , Oliver90 and Pargyle was in on the discussion.
Or maybe I've read it all wrong.
Happy to be corrected after reading back to Jonnybeegood's thread with you guys.
Perhaps it wants restating with the more experienced members agreeing the categories.

Correct! In this thread mated clipped queen left with prime swarm, queen has ended up under the mesh rest of swarm cannot find her and gone back into the hive, so will be headed by a virgin queen as stated by JBM in this thread

 

[midnight sun]

Correct! In this thread mated clipped queen left with prime swarm, queen has ended up under the mesh rest of swarm cannot find her and gone back into the hive, so will be headed by a virgin queen as stated by JBM in this thread

Ah Ha! Thanks!

 

[Swarm]

So what was the swarm that left, headed by a virgin, leaving the queen in the top brood box, above an excluder? It was the only swarm that went. AFAIC that's a prime.

 

[Anduril]

So what was the swarm that left, headed by a virgin, leaving the queen in the top brood box, above an excluder? It was the only swarm that went. AFAIC that's a prime.

No headed by a clipped queen.

 

[Cussword]

Nope - prime from the Latin is the first 'successful' swarm out whether the Queen is mated or no. - nothing to do with size either

I thought we had all this sorted when 'jonnybeegood' had a little 'tate a tate'? with several senior members. Seems at the time the
Prime swarm was headed by a mated Queen and the first out.
Prime cast was the first out and headed by a virgin.
subsequent casts would be headed by a virgin.
I'm sure JMB , Oliver90 and Pargyle were in on the discussion.
Or maybe I've read it all wrong.
Happy to be corrected after reading back to Jonnybeegood's thread with you guys.
Perhaps it wants restating with the more experienced members agreeing the categories.

"Ah Ha!"

I knew your comment would bring someone out of the woodwork JBM.

.

 

[midnight sun]

"Ah Ha!"

I knew your comment would bring someone out of the woodwork JBM.

.

I see you edited your original post, but thanks for the initial attempt to correct my spelling anyway. Your post was very constructive all the same though as most of yours are. Perhaps if you want to 'kiss JMB's backside' again though you could send a PM instead and have a "tete a tete" all of your own! Hope I haven't offended anyone. (Spelling correct this time I hope!)