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A few questions...

1K views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  Ross 
#1 ·
Folks, I don't know what to make of my hives. I have six hives, five of which made it through winter fine and are thriving, one died out..starved actually. I was gone for two weeks and didn't get to check them until a week ago. All five were going strong. Four had swarm cells and a some supercedure cells in the middle of some of the frames. Most of the swarm and supercedure cells were capped. All five hives were full of nectar, some capped brood, but I didn't see much young brood. None of the hives had swamred. Each hive has at least two supers on. But given the nectar bound brood nest and the swarm cells I figured swarming was imminent. I went ahead and added a thrid deep to the four hives and checkerboarded the frames of the second deep with some drawn, but mostly foundation-only frames from the new third box. I checked all hives agian last weekend, and none had swarmed yet, but they all continued to have capped swarm cells and some supercedure cells. And no swarmed hive yet either. I went ahead and moved every frame from the four hives that had any swarm cells to the dead-out hive, trying to make sure the queens were not on them. So, after all this, what happened/ is happening?
I may have moved a queen from one hive to the dead-out, but I don't know which hive she may have come from, or if she is indeed the old queen, and not a young one that just emerged. Will my removal of frames with swarm cells and opening the brood nest with (mostly) undrawn frames stop their swarming? And what should I do about the potentially queenless hive? Given how little new brood waspresent in all hives I doubt I will be able to identify which hive is potentially queenless...any other signs that may tell that? Wha should I do, or should have done? Any ideas? Suggestions? Answers? Thanks in advance.

Sorry for the rambling, but this is really baffling.
 
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#3 ·
Keith, that's what I thought as well when I saw the capped cells, that they have swarmed already. But the hive was full of bees, really full. And than last weekend (one week after the last inspection) it was the same picture... that's why I am really stumped...
I must admit, I have never seen a hive that has swarmed, how many bees are left after the swarming has taken place, but these hives are still full of bees...

Crazy!
 
#5 ·
Ok, assuming that they have alreday swarmed, I really screwed up by removing the frames with the swarm cells. I potentially removed their replacemnet queens right before they were hatching... what options do I have at this point? I have three queens on order for the end of May (1) and mid June (2) to introduce. Will I be able to tell from looking at activity in the hive if they are queenless? Or is that only possible to tell by opening the hives and checking for eggs or excessive drone brood? If I end up with four out of six hives being queenless then one other option would be to give each queenless hive a frame of brood from the two qeenright hives and let them raise a new queen. This would eliminate most likely any surplus honey from the, but at least I could save the hives...oh man, what great choices... any other thoughts? Thanks ofr taking the time, Keith.
 
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