What happens if you do an artificial swarm wrong?

[Luce]

This is my first spring with bees, after getting them through the winter I thought it might not be so scary.

I started a Bailey comb change approximately 2 weeks ago now, in the hope to make drawn comb, remove old blackened comb and to help delay swarming.

Yesterday I managed to do a full inspection after the recent chilly spell. I found 2 x queen cells in the bottom brood box, the queen in the new brood box and then drone cells in the first super. All 3 were separated by queen excluders.

I was aware I might get queen cells, and was happy to carry out an artificial swarm to fill another of my empty hives. However this is where it all went a bit haywire.

I moved the original queen out of her brood box with 1 frame of eggs and one of larvae and placed it on a new position. I then moved the queen cell up from the bottom to the second brood box and left in the original place.

After rereading all my notes and books this evening I realised that I put the queen in the wrong place and left the old hive in the wrong place.

Have I done something detrimental? Or will they cope? Is there an increased risk that the 'parent' hive will swarm again once the virgin has hatched?

I have a few hours tomorrow morning where I could swap it all about. Do I need to do this?

Sorry for the long first post, just want to make sure I have done the right thing for the bees!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

They will cope

 

[Beagle23]

Yes they'll manage.

You haven't done anything wrong, but at this stage of the year I'd take those queen excluders out. I doubt they're achieving much other than harming your bees wings.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I'd take those queen excluders out. I doubt they're achieving much other than harming your bees wings.

Queen excluders damage bees' wings.

Another one out from the book of ludicrous apocrypha.
Keep the QX between brood and supers, remove the rest.
#Queen excluders don't damage the bees wings, it's another myth.

 

[Beagle23]

Your omnipotence is very impressive.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

As is your naivety

 

[enrico]

Just because you have done it differently doesn't mean it is wrong. The bees will survive. The suggested ways are to try and keep your bees strong enough to collect nectar in excess. Yours might just get held back a bit. They want to survive so they will do everything they can to return to a full hive.
Ignore the bickering in the earlier posts
E

 

[Hebeegeebee]

You could have just removed the old box to one side.
Sometimes colonies will make QUEENCELLS as a result of a bailey as the queen pheromone is not so strong where she can't get to.

 

[mjt68]

You've basically taken a queenright nuc away and left 2 QCs. Just keep an eye to make sure the queenright side has enough bees and it'll be fine. Remove queen excluder between two brood boxes but otherwise resist the temptation to mess around in the queenless side and leave alone for a few weeks .

For the future, I find that this is actually the easiest response to swarm cells - just take the queen away in a nuc. You then go back and reduce to one or two good QCs to stop the hive swarming with a virgin.