What is goin' on????

[fatscher]

I did a split on two hives on March 23. I call them Hive A & B. When I split 'em I created Hive C & D. Move C& D 5.6 miles away. Hive A & B were originally one deep and one medium of brood. Hives C & D were the deeps from A&B. A&B being mediums were supplemented with a deep of 10-frames of foundation each.

Hives C& D had A&B's original queens. I requeened the remnants of A&B. Hive A exhibited swarm cells so I shaved 'em off. Hive A went queenless for two weeks, no brood, no eggs, lots of nectar in combs.

Hives C & D were deeps busting at the seams. And my blankety order from Brushy Mountain for 2 more deeps & hive top feeders for C&D was SLOWWWWW coming. C&D then got swarm cells on April 13th, I shaved off most I could find. C&D were ready to swarm because they had no room to go---Thanks Brushy Mountain for the slow response! I gave up shaving off swarm cells.

Meanwhile hive A went queenless, no queen cells to make another! Yikes. I robbed from Hive D on April 23, a frame of queen cells, put 'em in A, REUNION TIME GIRLS!!!

To make a long story short, Hive A finally got a laying mated queen courtesy of Mutha Nature, around May 3rd...the queen cells on Apr 23 were probably 10-11 days old. Meanwhile I get two more packages of bees and hive them, these are Hives E&F, down by a river bank (ominous foreboding). I'm bumming now, cause Hive C & D have swarmed and queenie is gone so they make another, over time , Mutha Natures queens in Hive C&D suck, the weather is too rainy for her to go out and mate, so she goes to town laying drone eggs. Hive C bees clue in the queen sucks so they kill her. Meanwhile several queens are emerging left and right in C & D. Weather sucks but clears enough for them to mate respectively. Meanwhile I see lots of drone, lots of nectar in comb and no eggs and capped brood is busting forth with bees who's mama queen left weeks ago. Oh yeah, Brushy Mtn's order comes in, I hastily assemble two more deeps to add to C&D (now C&D have two deep brood boxes a piece) I feed and feed, they draw out comb ever so slwly. C& D go queen less clear through May 7th. I panic and order 3 queens from Adam of VPQueens, in Frederick MD who tells me they'll be ready not earlier than June 1st.

Meanwhile I get a call on May 8th to capture a swarm from somebody's front yard bradford pear about 20 feet tall. The swarm is about 6 feet up. It's a textbook capture. I take the swarm in a deep brood box and makeshift hive top cover, to be with Hives E & F down by the river bank. I leave next day to see my kid graduate from college 450 miles away. Get back Saturday, Swarm hive is gone, Hives E & F are barely hanging on after a flood ...a flood of Biblical proportions....the river overflowed her banks--swept the cinder block hive stand nearly on their sides. In deep depression at the loss of the swarm hive, I relocate E&F to be near Hives A& B.

Today I go into C&D, find eggs and queens...After nearly a month in bee math (good lesson, Michael) Mutha Nature has outwitted me. I drive 5 miles to see hives A&B. A is pumping forth eggs and brood, but now B IS QUEENLESS, SIGH SIGH SIGH!

Guess what! My son looks up in a tree, and there's ANOTHER swarm clustered on a branch 8 feet up. I suspect Hive B swarmed and this is them! I capture them and they become Hive G!. Hive E & F? Hive F is trying to supercede the queen, I would have gone into 'em to look at the status of the supercedure cell, but the swarm capture B to G took precedence!

Our bee club has responded to about 20-30 swarms since April 1st! My hives are superceding / swarming / producing queen cells like crazy...gas is nearly 4 bucks a gallon. There's cyclones in Myanmar, Earthquakes im China, Tornadoes in the South, Floods in the mid atlantic, frogs, plagues locusts raiding the land of Egypt. Help...

...is this an EL NINO year? What's happening? Pls tell me no one sees an asteroid on track with Earth, please tell me please!!!:confused:

[Mike Gillmore]

I'll have to refer you to a Meteorologist and a Prophet for answers to your questions on severe weather patterns and plagues ;) .... but on the bee issues, it looks like you are experiencing a classic case of being caught short on equipment in an extremely active spring. Been there, done that.

My two cents ....
1.) stop cutting out your queen cells
2.) in the future have extra equipment ready to go ahead of time.

If you don't have enough equipment ready to handle your swarm prevention splits and super your colonies properly, then just let them swarm for now and don't interfere with them replacing their queens. You may actually be creating more problems for yourself and your bees.

[Barry]

If you don't have enough equipment ready to handle your swarm prevention splits and super your colonies properly, then just let them swarm for now and don't interfere with them replacing their queens. You may actually be creating more problems for yourself and your bees.

I'll second what Mike says. I've set the hives back more in the past by trying to cut out swarm cells and prevent the inevitable, then just letting them do what they do best. You will be ahead of the game catching a couple swarms and putting those powerhouses to work than to screw up the balance of the hive mind once they intend to swarm.

[iddee]

Another agreement. I never cut queen cells out. I would like reading your post better if you would clean your language up a bit.

[riverrat]

sounds like you need to give the bees more room. I wouldnt do splits or take on more hives until you have the equipment in hand to support the hive. That way you dont have to rely on quick delivery from a bee supply house.;) Quit cutting queen cells once queen cells are found the hive may have already swarmed. If found it is best to split the hive. But again you need to have enough equipment on hand to support your hives. Not having enough equipment on hand is a often overlooked mistake that a lot of beekeepers make. While there may not be an astroid aimed at earth. The bees in your bee yard are probably thinking there is one aimed at there hive that has taken the shape of a human:D

[fatscher]

Another agreement. I never cut queen cells out. I would like reading your post better if you would clean your language up a bit.


Sorry iddee, didn't mean to offend. I was trying to be cute, and show my exasperation at the same time.

[fatscher]

[QUOTE=Mike Gillmore;319546]

My two cents ....
1.) stop cutting out your queen cells
QUOTE]

Yes, I've learned not to do this, now. But the text books for our beginners class said to do this. Sometimes when the bees want to swarm, they will swarm, and there's nothing that can be done. I ASSUMED (you know what they say about that) that the bees would follow text book, that they would not have a reason to swarm. I've learned that agriculture has a mind of its own!!!