What happened in my colony please?

[Tigger]

Hi all,

Could anyone suggest what may have happened here.

11 May found Q cells. Can't find Q so I

• Moved hive away 50m. Put new hive on original spot. This is my Blue hive now.
• Transferred a frame with Q cells from old hive to Blue hive and filled up hive with foundation etc.

18 May removed all Q cells except one from Blue hive

1 June:

• I find a bivouacked swarm in the hedge near the entrance to the apiary. Can't imaging where it came from but I thought it couldn't be the Blue hive.
• Put as much as I could into a cardboard box and went off to check my books to confirm what to do next. There's lots of bees flying around where the swarm had been.
• Returned a little later and there are tons of bees on front of Blue hive and much fewer in my cardboard box.
• I conclude that the swarm came from the Blue hive.
• An hour later, when they've settled, I open the Blue hive.
• Can't find a Q (though this doesn't say too much).
• I find the Q cell from which Q has emerged. No sign of other Q cells. Not jam packed with bees.

What's happened?????????

Thanks folks

 

[Sutty]

Have you found the queen in the hive you moved to the new position, or could she have been in the blue hive you added the queen cell to?

 

[pargyle]

Hi all,

Could anyone suggest what may have happened here.

11 May found Q cells. Can't find Q so I

• Moved hive away 50m. Put new hive on original spot. This is my Blue hive now.
• Transferred a frame with Q cells from old hive to Blue hive and filled up hive with foundation etc.

18 May removed all Q cells except one from Blue hive

1 June:

• I find a bivouacked swarm in the hedge near the entrance to the apiary. Can't imaging where it came from but I thought it couldn't be the Blue hive.
• Put as much as I could into a cardboard box and went off to check my books to confirm what to do next. There's lots of bees flying around where the swarm had been.
• Returned a little later and there are tons of bees on front of Blue hive and much fewer in my cardboard box.
• I conclude that the swarm came from the Blue hive.
• An hour later, when they've settled, I open the Blue hive.
• Can't find a Q (though this doesn't say too much).
• I find the Q cell from which Q has emerged. No sign of other Q cells. Not jam packed with bees.

What's happened?????????

Thanks folks

There's a few questions, let alone answers, here:

1. Were the original queen cells you saw on 11/05 charged (ie: open with larvae & royal jelly) or were they already sealed ?

2. Why did you move the hive 50 metres away ?

3. Why did you wait 7 days before taking the queen cells (all bar one) down ?

3. When you moved the frame with the queen cells into the new hive did you check that you did not have a queen on there as well. How many queen cells did you transfer ?

4. Were there eggs and brood on the frame you transferred ?

What you've done is not a conventional artificial swarm ... you need to read up on Wally Shaws pamphlet ' There are queen cells in my hive'.

https://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/There-Are-Queen-Cells-In-My-Hive-WBKA-WAG.pdf
As to what has happened - I suspect that your original hive had already swarmed - your blue hive may well have made more queen cells that you haven't noticed and the first virgin to emerge has swarmed.

Your only hope is that what you saw was the virgin going off on her mating flight - they are often accompanied initially by what looks like a swarm but they usually go back to the hive fairly quickly - in this case - helped by you and your cardboard box.

More importantly - what's happening in your original hive.

There's a few more possibilities here so you are going to get a few more guesses. What you need to consider now - is what is left in your two colonies and how are you going to deal with it. We can't really tell from what you have told us what is actually going on.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

What's happened?????????

Don't know - not even sure what you were trying to achieve.
What's happening in the original hive?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hi all,

Could anyone suggest what may have happened here.

11 May found Q cells. Can't find Q so I

• Moved hive away 50m. Put new hive on original spot. This is my Blue hive now.
• Transferred a frame with Q cells from old hive to Blue hive and filled up hive with foundation etc.

18 May removed all Q cells except one from Blue hive

1 June:

• I find a bivouacked swarm in the hedge near the entrance to the apiary. Can't imaging where it came from but I thought it couldn't be the Blue hive.
• Put as much as I could into a cardboard box and went off to check my books to confirm what to do next. There's lots of bees flying around where the swarm had been.
• Returned a little later and there are tons of bees on front of Blue hive and much fewer in my cardboard box.
• I conclude that the swarm came from the Blue hive.
• An hour later, when they've settled, I open the Blue hive.
• Can't find a Q (though this doesn't say too much).
• I find the Q cell from which Q has emerged. No sign of other Q cells. Not jam packed with bees.

What's happened?????????

Thanks folks

What you should have done was to search the colony for queen cells, find one open one with a larva in it in a good protected position ( not along the bottom bars ) and mark the frame. Shake all the bees off the rest of the frames and remove the rest. Return in five days to look and remove any others. Close up and leave for three weeks.

Can I just add without disrespect
What sort of swarm management have you been practicing?
How often have you been looking into the bees and do you know what to look for?

 

[Tigger]

There's a few questions, let alone answers, here:

1. Were the original queen cells you saw on 11/05 charged (ie: open with larvae & royal jelly) or were they already sealed ?

2. Why did you move the hive 50 metres away ?

3. Why did you wait 7 days before taking the queen cells (all bar one) down ?

3. When you moved the frame with the queen cells into the new hive did you check that you did not have a queen on there as well. How many queen cells did you transfer ?

4. Were there eggs and brood on the frame you transferred ?

What you've done is not a conventional artificial swarm ... you need to read up on Wally Shaws pamphlet ' There are queen cells in my hive'.

https://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/There-Are-Queen-Cells-In-My-Hive-WBKA-WAG.pdf
As to what has happened - I suspect that your original hive had already swarmed - your blue hive may well have made more queen cells that you haven't noticed and the first virgin to emerge has swarmed.

Your only hope is that what you saw was the virgin going off on her mating flight - they are often accompanied initially by what looks like a swarm but they usually go back to the hive fairly quickly - in this case - helped by you and your cardboard box.

More importantly - what's happening in your original hive.

There's a few more possibilities here so you are going to get a few more guesses. What you need to consider now - is what is left in your two colonies and how are you going to deal with it. We can't really tell from what you have told us what is actually going on.

Thank you very much for the thorough reply. Yes, I should have been more explicit. In answer to your questions:

1. The cells I found were charged, not sealed.
2. I moved the hive 50m so that the foragers would return to the old site and go into my new Blue hive. One hive would have a Q and the other would draw Q cells.
3. I think there were only two charged cells. No I didn't manage to find the Q.
4. There were larvae and sealed brood. My sight isn't good enough to say whether there were eggs.

Thanks for the reference. I followed the step-by-step procedure (for when you can't find the Q) suggested by the Scottish blogger called the Apiarist.
https://www.theapiarist.org/swarm-control-and-elusive-queens/
What I failed to say in my question is that on18 May I found the Q in the old hive and I marked her and she's laying fine.

Before I opened the Blue hive today I too thought that perhaps I'd missed a second Q cell but when I looked there was absolutely no sign of a second Q cell. I examined it closely as there were not too many bees.

If it was Q on mating flight then it was quite a lot of bees with her but a smaller amount than usual for a swarm.

I think I'm going to have to wait to see if there's a laying Q. Fingers crossed.

 

[Tigger]

Have you found the queen in the hive you moved to the new position, or could she have been in the blue hive you added the queen cell to?

Thanks. Yes, I've since found her in the moved hive.

 

[Tigger]

What you should have done was to search the colony for queen cells, find one open one with a larva in it in a good protected position ( not along the bottom bars ) and mark the frame. Shake all the bees off the rest of the frames and remove the rest. Return in five days to look and remove any others. Close up and leave for three weeks.

Can I just add without disrespect
What sort of swarm management have you been practicing?
How often have you been looking into the bees and do you know what to look for?

Thank you very much for that. In answer to your questions
- I look in the hive every seven days. I try to see the Q, otherwise to see small larvae as evidence that she was there recently. I look for Q cells and if there are any I take action which differs depending on whether I find the Q or not.

Thanks again.

 

[pargyle]

Thanks for the reference. I followed the step-by-step procedure (for when you can't find the Q) suggested by the Scottish blogger called the Apiarist.
https://www.theapiarist.org/swarm-control-and-elusive-queens/

No you didn't ...

• Transfer one frame containing eggs and young larvae from the old hive to the new hive.
• It is imperative that the selected frame has no queen cells on it.

"11 May found Q cells. Can't find Q so I

• Moved hive away 50m. Put new hive on original spot. This is my Blue hive now.
• Transferred a frame with Q cells from old hive to Blue hive and filled up hive with foundation etc."

And that's where the problem lies ......

 

[Boston Bees]

What you should have done was to search the colony for queen cells, find one open one with a larva in it in a good protected position ( not along the bottom bars ) and mark the frame. Shake all the bees off the rest of the frames and remove the rest. Return in five days to look and remove any others. Close up and leave for three weeks.

But... He couldn't find the queen. Your advice is surely for where you know the hive has swarmed? He didn't (and they hadn't). No?

 

[Boston Bees]

No you didn't ...

• Transfer one frame containing eggs and young larvae from the old hive to the new hive.
• It is imperative that the selected frame has no queen cells on it.

"11 May found Q cells. Can't find Q so I

• Moved hive away 50m. Put new hive on original spot. This is my Blue hive now.
• Transferred a frame with Q cells from old hive to Blue hive and filled up hive with foundation etc."

And that's where the problem lies ......

It's a misreading of the method certainly. But one that turned out to have no impact. It's imperative that there are no QCs on the frame because if there are, and if the queen IS moved across with them, she'll swarm. But as it happened she stayed in the old hive. So no harm done, no?

 

[pargyle]

It's a misreading of the method certainly. But one that turned out to have no impact. It's imperative that there are no QCs on the frame because if there are, and if the queen IS moved across with them, she'll swarm. But as it happened she stayed in the old hive. So no harm done, no?

Except ... you've created a colony that is mostly foragers (and they are the ones with the swarm instinct) in the location where they were preparing to swarm ,... with a frame with queen cells on it ... which may lead to a virgin swarm ... Plus you have a colony where there may still be some foragers 50m away that has a queen and brood and which was also thinking about swarming and a queen cell left in there - he's lucky they haven't swarmed.

Certainly a misreading of the method and the potential for a number of disasters ... and it may only be a matter of luck that he's still got any bees left ....

 

[Worker bee]

Check every frame for emerged queen cells you'll get a pretty good idea. I couldn't keep up just reading through it. But I could tell you what happened with a single inspection

 

[pargyle]

Check every frame for emerged queen cells you'll get a pretty good idea

A good idea of what ? That if you are going to do an A/S then follow the laid down procedure to the letter ?

 

[Worker bee]

A good idea of what ? That if you are going to do an A/S then follow the laid down procedure to the letter ?

It's not that complicated to work out

 

[Worker bee]

Why did you move the hive?

 

[Worker bee]

Thank you very much for that. In answer to your questions
- I look in the hive every seven days. I try to see the Q, otherwise to see small larvae as evidence that she was there recently. I look for Q cells and if there are any I take action which differs depending on whether I find the Q or not.
Thanks again.

a hive will swarm when a Q cell has been capped. Worker bees can draw cups in a day and queens lay constantly. How long to cap that cell? Now presume you missed one on your inspection and now tell
me one week inspections are a good idea for a new beekeeper

 

[Swarm]

I seem to remember somebody else saying the same.

 

[Worker bee]

I seem to remember somebody else saying the same.

In my opinion new beekeepers should inspect hives as often as possible. A minimum of once every three days

 

[Sutty]

In my opinion new beekeepers should inspect hives as often as possible. A minimum of once every three days

That seems impracticable for a huge proportion of people (eg those who work). Also contradicts a large body of opinion which says don't inspect more often than necessary.