Was it supercedure or swarming?

[TomH]

Inspected a hive today, despite going through a couple of times, found only 2 queen cells, one capped and one charged, both on the bottom edge of a frame.

Regardless or swarming or supercedure, I appreciate with more than one queen or QC, there is the possibility of swarming, so I nuc'd the original queen, made up another nuc with the capped QC and left the original colony with the uncapped, charged cell. The original queen was white marked (as a swarm I collected, but not my bees), so assume 2021.

Did I do the right thing? I'm guessing that now i've removed the original queen, they will draw emergency cells, which will also need knocking down as per normal nucleus method?

Only two cells, so doesn't seem many for swarming? Interestingly, once i'd nuc'd the queen, a lot of flying bees took themselves off to the nuc of their own accord and were fanning, so guessing there could we'll have been primed for swarming anyway? The weather has not been good here the past couple of days, so may be delayed the prime swarm and I got lucky and just caught them in time.

Cheers

 

[enrico]

We will never know but at least you have all parts of the hive. Had you been wrong, or indeed had you asked earlier and been given advice that turned out to be wrong you may only have half a hive now! Well done I say! I would check for extra emergency cells and see what you find!

 

[TomH]

Hi Enrico, thank you for the kind words and reassurance. Much appreciated.

My second year of beekeeping, so it feels more like an adrenaline sport at the moment, as opposed to the rural idyll I had in mind!!

 

[Boston Bees]

Inspected a hive today, despite going through a couple of times, found only 2 queen cells, one capped and one charged, both on the bottom edge of a frame.

Regardless or swarming or supercedure, I appreciate with more than one queen or QC, there is the possibility of swarming, so I nuc'd the original queen, made up another nuc with the capped QC and left the original colony with the uncapped, charged cell. The original queen was white marked (as a swarm I collected, but not my bees), so assume 2021.

Did I do the right thing? I'm guessing that now i've removed the original queen, they will draw emergency cells, which will also need knocking down as per normal nucleus method?

Only two cells, so doesn't seem many for swarming? Interestingly, once i'd nuc'd the queen, a lot of flying bees took themselves off to the nuc of their own accord and were fanning, so guessing there could we'll have been primed for swarming anyway? The weather has not been good here the past couple of days, so may be delayed the prime swarm and I got lucky and just caught them in time.

Cheers

Was the hive big enough to divide into three?

 

[TomH]

Hmm, I hope so! Original hive was on brood and half (and a bit, no QX), so 1 standard, and 4 shallows above full of bees. Brood over the standard and 1.5 shallows above.

Made up two nucs with two frames of brood each, and a shake of bees. Made up the rest of the box with drawn comb, and spare stores frames. Have moved them to a different apiary, so they should retain the flying bees. Leaves the original hive with 1.5 shallows of brood, and ~4 frames in the brood box.

Starting to see a few wasps around now, so guess need to keep an eye on the strength of the nucs?

 

[drex]

All sounds good to me. We'll done. You have learnt fast

 

[TomH]

Just by way of an update, it would appear supercedure was the answer!

Checked the original hive, and unsurprisingly they had drawn more emergency cells, after nuc'ing the original queen. Left them with one and will leave them alone to sort themselves out now. Real flow on here, nectar dripping out of the frames and they have already backfilled much of the brood comb with nectar. Picture below.

The nuc with the original queen has further charged cells, which I take is their continued intent to supercede her?

The second nuc I made up with the capped cell from the original colony looks strong, so will leave them to it and see if I get a mated queen.

What are my options with the nuc with the original queen, will a nuc have enough nurse bees to raise a decent queen as they try and supercede her? My plan was just to leave them all to get on with it now, should have a bit of insurance with 2 nucs, so can always unite later in the year if either of them turn out to be duds?

Thanks

 

[Kaz]

My second year of beekeeping, so it feels more like an adrenaline sport at the moment, as opposed to the rural idyll I had in mind!!

That doesn't change, it's always an adrenaline sport