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storm of exiting bees

5K views 30 replies 5 participants last post by  dcromwel 
G
#1 ·
Was it a swarm? A declaration of independence on July 4th?

Inspected the hive this morning. Plenty of capped brood in the lower box. Didn't see the queen but saw numerous cells containing single eggs. Saw one capped swarm cell and removed it. Saw 5-6 drawn frames in the upper box with plenty of capped honey and four nearly virgin frames. Replaced upper and lower boxes and the hive top feeder and refilled the feeder with 1:1 syrup.

Then ~2 hrs later I was out having a catch with my son and we were struck by the activity around the hive....a storm of swirling bees from near-ground level to 40-50 feet up. Like an endless wave of them emerging from the front, crawling part way up the face of hive and taking off. All of that eventually settled down except for a persistent focused hovering near one tree top, a false cypress about 40 feet up. I never saw a cluster, but persistnet hovering. Potential siting of a cluster compromised by lots of under and overgrowth in and around the tree(s).

Was this a swarm? If so, any ideas why? It is hot and humid in Baltimore today, heat index > 100 today in Baltimore.
 
G
#2 ·
Does the colony ever depopulate temporarily (during the hottest part of the day) in hot conditions to help cool the hive?

[This message has been edited by dcromwel (edited July 04, 2003).]
 
#3 ·
Sounds as if you did have a swarm cast off. Often you will see a "play flight" or recess in front of a colony. Lots of bees will be swirling about in front of the hive for several minutes. Your bees and the activity and height described sounds classic for a swarm. Look toward the top of the tree where you last sighted them and you may spot some flight activity in that area. Good luck.
 
#8 ·
Usually in preparation for a swarm the queen quits laying so she can slim down to fly well. If so, then there won't be any fresh eggs. But I'm still betting they had more than one swarm cell. Still it would be good to keep an eye on things and try to find one, careful not to destroy it when moving frames.
 
G
#9 ·
Beekeeping for Dummies says to wait a week before re-inspecting the hive. Do you think I should follow that advice, or check right away. Michael, it sounds like you would advise ordering a new queen if I don't find a remaining queen cell. Is that so?

Also, any sense based on my initial description as to what prompted the swarm?

Thank, guys.

David
 
G
#10 ·
By the way, I have finally spotted and confirmed the swarm cluster. Large, bigger than a football. About 40-50 feet up. Is the colony remaining in our hive boxes at increased risk of robbing with such reduced numbers?
 
#11 ·
Actually, its nature way of furthering the species. What you had was a swarm cell, and a virgin actually emerged 3 days ago. She took a mating flight, and the bees followed her. If I were you, I would go thru the hive frame by frame looking for queens, and cells. If you have more queens, expect more little swarms. Sometimes, if the queens emerge together, as in my case, they will be separated in the hive, but will pipe. It is actually pretty cool to hear. But get the hive down to one queen, spread out your frames, so virgin frames are separating full ones. Pyramid up,meaning move some of the brood to the top box. That will bring the nurse bees up, and the queen as well. With that much room, you should be good, but make sure there is only one queen. Was your queen marked? If it was, it will be easy to tell which is mated. If not, generally the mated one will be longer, but not always. Virgin queens are smaller, but grow rapidly once mated. Look long and hard at your frames. Virgins also tend to be shy and hide under other bees. And, normally you will find the queen near the brood, but virgins can be anywhere. Like I said, get rid of all remaining swarm cells. They can be on the bottom, but they may even have made emergency or supercedure type cells in the middle of the frame. Look for a growth out then down. If it sticks straight out, it is probably drone, but if it goes down, it is a queen cell. Before removing them though, find a queen or multiples. Maybe you got lucky, if you call it that, and things will settle down now.

I can go on and on, but inspect that hive today. Don't wait, or you may lose more bees than you have already.


------------------
Dale Richards
Dal-Col Apiaries
Drums, PA
 
#12 ·
As for robbing you always have to pay attention, any hive may find itself being robbed if something reduces the numbers, but I wouldn't be expecting it to happen if there is a honey flow on.

You could try the "shotgun" method of shooting the brandh off the tree with a box, or maybe a tarp below?

They are probably gone by now anyway.
 
G
#13 ·
Dale and Michael, thanks for your responses. My queen was marked, but I assumed that the swarm was with her. Dale, you're indicating that the swarm was likely with a virgin queen? What is piping? Never heard of it? And if I'm understanding your instructions, I should expect to find my marked queen still there, eliminate any queen cells, try to find and eliminate any other queens as long as I find my marked one, separate full frames with virgin ones, and pyramid up as you explained. I thought that separating full frames with virgin ones made it harder for the colony to temperature regulate.

Also, this hive is in full sunlight from about 9:30am to 2:30pm. I'm now afraid that it's too much for our frequently sweltering Baltimore summer days and that I should do the wheelbarrow thing and move it 1-2 feet a day until I can get it to sun-dappled ground.

Michael, I have a few shotguns, the hive is still there, but it's illegal to discharge a firearm in the Baltimore metropolitan area, and it would be a remarkable shot that would require taking off the top 5-6 feet of this false cypress evergreen tree.

Maybe I'll consider it tomorrow if they're still there. I was hoping that I might catch them when they moved on, but thus far they're still hunting for those happier grounds.

Thanks,

David
 
#14 ·
>Dale and Michael, thanks for your responses. My queen was marked, but I assumed that the swarm was with her.

That would be my guess. If she isn't then she left in a earlier swarm.

>Dale, you're indicating that the swarm was likely with a virgin queen?

If it's an afterwarm.

>What is piping? Never heard of it?

Queens in a cell make a sound like "quack quack quack" very distinct. Virgin queens that are emerged make a "zoot zoot zoot" sound which is generally called piping.

>And if I'm understanding your instructions, I should expect to find my marked queen still there, eliminate any queen cells, try to find and eliminate any other queens as long as I find my marked one,

I don't think you'll find the marked one, but you need to make sure you have a queen before you destroy all of the swarm cells. You could end up queenless.

>separate full frames with virgin ones, and pyramid up as you explained. I thought that separating full frames with virgin ones made it harder for the colony to temperature regulate.

It will, but I think he's trying to get them to spread out so they won't want to afterswarm.

>Also, this hive is in full sunlight from about 9:30am to 2:30pm. I'm now afraid that it's too much for our frequently sweltering Baltimore summer days and that I should do the wheelbarrow thing and move it 1-2 feet a day until I can get it to sun-dappled ground.

From my experience full sun is a good thing as long as the entrace is wide open. Better if you have some kind of ventilation in the top (a top entrance, propped up inner cover etc.). I've tried them in full sun and partial shade and the ones in full sun always out produced the ones in partial shade.

>Michael, I have a few shotguns, the hive is still there, but it's illegal to discharge a firearm in the Baltimore metropolitan area, and it would be a remarkable shot that would require taking off the top 5-6 feet of this false cypress evergreen tree.

I certaily wouldn't suggest you do it in town.


>Maybe I'll consider it tomorrow if they're still there. I was hoping that I might catch them when they moved on, but thus far they're still hunting for those happier grounds.

If they are still there they may have gotten lost. The scouts that find the new place are field bees and the ones in the swarm are nurse bees. The nurse bees and the queen don't know the territory. If the scout bees gave up and went home then the swarm is on it's own. They may even set up house in the open if someone doesn't find a suitable place. Have you tried setting some old, empty equipment on the ground? Spray it with some lemon pledge. It has citronol in it and smells very much like nasonov pheromone. Maybe they will find it and move in.
 
#15 ·
I tried "shooting" down a swarm this year. I am in a rural area where I was able to do it. The swarm was on the end of a small limb. Third shot with a 22 brought them down from about 30 feet up. As the limb was falling bees began peeling off so when the swarm finally came to ground it was noticably smaller. Bottom line, within about 3-4 minutes the entire swarm was in flight and settled back down in close proximity from where they fell. I gave up on that swarm and the next day they were gone.
 
G
#16 ·
Thanks for the input fellahs. I'm not actually in town. We're in a rural feeling part of the suburbs but within the Baltimore Beltway, hence the law disallowing firearm discharges. I can't tell for sure if the swarm cluster is still there; backlighting and height conspire to make visibility difficult. But there's clearly still some activity in that tree top with a frequent solo bee flying out of or into the vicinity into the clear and therefore more visible. I'm gonna go inspect the hive now and queen hunt. Michael, your thoughts on sunlight are important. Do you guys have the combo of heat and humidity that we have here in Baltimore (mid 90's for both with the "heat index" > 100)? Does that matter? Or just prop up the inner cover?

Would a queenless hive behave any differently re: traffic in and out or temperament of this previously very mild-mannered colony?

Thanks,

David
 
G
#18 ·
Fair enough.

Just finished long inspection of the hive; went thru each frame 2-3 times. Didn't see a queen, but might have rookie inspection skills and did see a sparse number of single-egg cells. Saw 8-10 swarm cells, including one in the food chamber. About half of them capped. One capped supercedure cell (at least a queen looking cell ~1/2 way up the frame). A fair amount of young larvae. The swarm was only 2 days ago. I made an executive decision and, seeing the eggs, figured that I might still have a queen and so I removed all seen queen cells. Truth is I have little confidence in this strategy. There were lots of empty brood cells, and a fair amount of other brood cells with nectar in them leaving me wondering about heat as the possible explanation for the swarming. Should I have left one queen cell? The supercedure cell?

Boy, is this educational.

Thanks,

David
 
#19 ·
What I learned from my queenless hive:

Lots of drone cells

Lots of drones

Extremely spotty laying pattern--brood scattered all around in several frames, no significant blocks of capped brood or larvae.

Eggs not in bottom of cells, multiple eggs in some cells

No queen. I looked and looked and looked, but never found her. Duh...She wasn't there.
 
G
#20 ·
Beegee, Michael, anyone else, what do you make of the sparse but definite presence of single eggs in some of the brood cells?

Also, if there's no queen and there's a remaining queen swarm cell, will she stay put or swarm once emerged?

When does one throw in the towel and prder a new queen? And any recommendations from whom to order? Dale, you're in the mid-Atlantic. Where do you get new queens when needed?

Thanks,

David

[This message has been edited by dcromwel (edited July 06, 2003).]
 
#21 ·
>Beegee, Michael, anyone else, what do you make of the sparse but definite presence of single eggs in some of the brood cells?

More than likely it's a queen. Laying workers usually don't lay one egg to a cell.

>Also, if there's no queen and there's a remaining queen swarm cell, will she stay put or swarm once emerged?

Can't say. The bees will do what they want. But if there is a queen laying and they have swarmed then it's been a few days or weeks since the swarm right? Otherwise there wouldn't be time for the queen to emerge and mate and start laying. If this is true then maybe the cell you saw isn't going to emerge. I'm always kind of hesitant to go destroying queen cells unless I am absolutely positive there is a queen and that means seeing her.

>When does one throw in the towel and prder a new queen?

It's a tough choice and one I have to make often enough that you'd think I'd have a cut and dried answer. I try to find her. I try to beleive she is there and look for her and look for eggs. If I'm seeing single eggs in cells I would wait and see. If I'm seeing multiple eggs, I'm already in touble, but I'd get a queen and try to introduce her very gradually. If you're not seeing any eggs and can't find the queen, it may be that a virgin is just to fast for you. They hide from the light and sometimes it takes a week or a week and a half for them to emerge, mate and start laying regulary. I have often bought a queen because I thought they were queenless and then found a different queen when I checked the hive next. The problem is that sometimes I've been sure there must be a virgin queen and ended up with a laying worker.

>And any recommendations from whom to order? Dale, you're in the mid-Atlantic. Where do you get new queens when needed?

I'm not in the mid-Atlantic, but I just bought some from McCary that looked nice. I haven't had them long enough to say how they will do, but everyone else who has them seems to love them. I've ordered from Walter T. Kellys and liked them. I've gotten them from Hardemans and Wilbanks and liked them. I've gotten them from B Weaver for years and only recently had any problems with them and they are saying they are aware of that and are breeding for gentleness again.
 
G
#22 ·
Michael, thanks again for your input. For some reason, your uncertainty is comforting, perhaps underlining the art as well as science of beekeeping.

What would happen if there was a queen there that I missed and I ordered and tried to introduce a new one?

Thanks again,

David
 
#23 ·
I have just done this. I had a hive of Carnolians that appeared to be queenless. I bought a Russian queen that was a brown colored queen. I introduced the queen and it seemed to go well. When I checked later, I found a black queen, unmarked so she wasn't the original queen, and not brown, so she wasn't the Russian queen that I introduced. Obviously they kept their queen, which was probably a virgin and why I didn't find her or any eggs, and killed the Russian that I put in. Worse case is they kill the new queen and keep the one they raised. If you don't try to introduce a queen, worst case is you end up with a laying worker and best case is you saved some money.

One thing I will say, I'm getting better at spotting virgin queens. If you understand them you'll find them more often. They are very shy of the light. One method mentioned by someone else in finding queens, was to take a few frames out to make room and push pairs of frames together. She will tend to end up in between the frames where it's dark. A virgin moves very quickly. Not at all like a laying queen. A laying queen doesn't usually try to move fast. A virgin can run so fast and do it while hiding behind every worker she can. You have to look differently to find her. Look behind workers, look more then once or twice. Look the comb over several times and don't look so slowly as you do with a laying queen. At least not the first couple of glances. Look for rapid movement across the comb from further away. If there is a virgin queen, odds are she's hiding behind some workers or hiding on an end or hiding where there is less light.

I'll recap. The difficulty is that when the queens lose a queen (squished on an end bar etc.) and go to raise a new one you will reach a point where all of the brood has emerged before you reach the point where the new queen is laying. If you inspect the hive at this point it appears to be queenless when it is not. You requeen and they kill the queen. You leave it alone and they do fine.

The other senerio is that the queen was killed and they failed to raise a new one. More than likely they end up queenless because the queen got killed (proably by getting squished on an end bar) the bees were rasing a new one and the two or three queen cell they were raising got destroyed when you were inspecting (this is VERY easy to do) and the one that didn't get destroyed didn't make it for other reasons and now they have no queen. When you inspect this hive it's indistinguishable from the hive with the virgin queen. There are little hints that help. Supercedure or emergency cells that have the cap opened (not the side opened) are an indication that a queen has emerged. Of course the other problem is sometimes she goes off to mate and doesn't come back. So this isn't proof that she's there.

Another scenerio is that the bees swarm. They have a couple of afterswarms and either by bad planning (ALL the queens swarmed) or a queen that doesn't manage to emerge or a queen battle that results in both combatants dying they end up with no queen. You inspect and find queen cells that have the caps opened indicating an emerging queen but the question is did she swarm? Did she die in combat? Is she here?

The only sure way to know you have a queen is find her or fresh unhatched eggs. Everything else is helpful but still speculation. If you add a frame of eggs and there is a laying worker, they may or may not raise a new queen. But if they do raise one you know they had a good reason. If you buy and queen and introduce her and there is a laying worker they may kill the store bought queen and still be queenless.

I know it's confusing. The thing to do is learn to spot a virgin queen.
Frequent inspections and good notes are helpful because you can get a better time frame of when you last saw the queen or fresh eggs and if there were queen cells and if they seemed to have dropped population suddenly (swarmed but you didn't witness it). This is all helpful information in trying to figure out where you are in the scheme of things.
 
G
#24 ·
Thanks, Michael. I'm going in again later today. Just trying to understand why all this swarming occurred -- if that's possible -- what do you think about all the nectar/water stored in the brood cells? Does that provide a clue about overheating? And is it possible that I encouraged too rapid colony growth with abundant syrup feeding?

Thanks,

David

[This message has been edited by dcromwel (edited July 08, 2003).]
 
#25 ·
>Thanks, Michael. I'm going in again later today. Just trying to understand why all this swarming occurred -- if that's possible

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Crowding causing swarming, but some people don't seem to understand it's often crowding in the brood chamber, not just the hive. Lake of ventilation I think contributes to the bees' perception that it's crowded. Slatted racks, Screened Bottom Boards, ventilation systems all help with this and cut down on swarming. But sometimes you have to accept that bees swarm. It's what they do. Usually it's your fault, but sometimes they have just made up their mind to reproduce. If you keep bees, some of them will swarm.

>what do you think about all the nectar/water stored in the brood cells? Does that provide a clue about overheating?

My guess is, that it's nectar and it's there because the queen quit laying and they just filled it in. Usually when they get a queen they move it back out of the way. If it was there BEFORE they swarmed, then maybe the brood nest was full of honey.

>And is it possible that I encouraged too rapid colony growth with abundant syrup feeding?

No. But it could have contributed to a honey bound brood nest.
 
G
#26 ·
OK. Today's inspection completed. If there's a queen in there, I didn't see her and she's a non-egg-laying type of queen. Absolutely no apparent single (or multiple) eggs in any brood cells. I do have one remaining capped swarm cell.

Question: is there any way to predict which would be better between letting the swarm cell hatch versus re-queening with a new store-bought queen version. Would a swarm cell queen be more likely to take off with half of my reamining bees?

As an aside, I noticed today a slight temperament change in this previously very mild-mannered colony of bees....a little more short tempered as I nudged and pushed them arouns the hive than has previously been the case.

Thanks,

David
 
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