What stage will a swarm leave?

[Legion©]

I've got one hive that is dying to swarm on me. I got it just before the spring flow hit, and the previous owner had just removed all the honey. It's a really strong hive, and I didn't get the honey supers on quick enough

I checked it a couple of weeks ago, and found a few queen cells in the 2nd brood chamber (3 mediums), I'm assuming swarm rather than supersedure as the existing queen is was laying plenty and in a good patttern. I'm in a suburban area, so if I can stop them from swarming it would be a good thing. I removed those cells just after they were capped a few days later. I looked in again today and found 3 more queen cells - 1 in the bottom super, and 2 in the 2nd. There is very little uncapped brood around, though a few in the bottom super, and I did spot some eggs there. The comb is very dark and I'm still kinda new at this so there may be eggs that I didn't see elsewhere. I've never spotted the queen in this hive (she's not marked), and today was no exception despite going in with next to no smoke.

Anyhoo, the question is, at what point will the original queen leave? Once the swarm cells are capped? A few days before they emerge? I don't want to go removing swarm cells only to find that the queen has taken off on me.

Now that they're so far into swarming prep, is there any way to stop them?

TIA, Paul

[shughes]

this is my first year but in my experience once they have swarm cells I would not cut them out. take every frame that has a swarm cell and put them in a small nuc. dump some nurse bees on this nuc. you are basically creating an artificial swarm. you could also take out the old queen and start a nuc. I tried this both ways this year.

if you don't want the extra hive you can always recombine them later in the season. mbush has a lot of good info on his site.

http://bushfarms.com/bees.htm

Chances are he'll read this post and give you some more info

[Dale Hodges]

I'm not there so I can't be positve, but, the lack of brood doesn"t sound like a swarm, it sounds like supersedure. bees don't swarm just because they're crowded, they swarm because the brood nest is conjested. Yours is not, or doesn't sound like it is. Swarm cells are generally on the bottom of comb(frame). Supersedure cells are generaly in the middle of the frame.

[Mike Gillmore]

With the information given, I would agree that is appears they are trying to supercede the queen.. for whatever reason. She could be old and fizzing out, or perhaps was damaged in the move.

Cutting out the queen cells is dangerous, as you could end up queenless if she is physically damaged or near the end of her laying capabilities. If faced with this my approach would be as follows.

Get a nuc ready and go back into the colony, take your time and find the queen. Move her out and into the nuc, with a few frames including stores and capped brood along with accompanying young bees. Leave all the queen cells in the old colony and let them proceed with making their new queen.

If they actually were planning to swarm, then it is less likely they will proceed since you have removed the old queen, simulating a swarm. Either way, let them make their new queen. Once you see the new queen has mated and is laying eggs, you can dispose of the old queen in the nuc and combine the bees and frames back with the original colony. If something should go wrong in the replacement process, you always have the old queen in the nuc to fall back on.

[Legion©]

Thanks guys. I guess I forgot to mention the location of the cells - they're all at the bottom of the edge of the frames, mostly just above the bottom bar. My understanding of the swarming proceduie was that the queen slows down her laying before leaving, so that the diminished hive still had the resources to nurse and forage?

I should have mentioned that I swapped in a new brood chamber for the 2nd box here (changing them out progressively for full depth), the comb is pretty well drawn out, and they've started a nice pattern of filling with pollen and nectar around the outside, but the queen doesn't seem to have strayed from the bottom box in the last week - perhaps she doesn't like it (wax foundation wired in same as the existing old frames though)?

shughes, when taking the swarm cells instead of the queen to the nuc, do they still see that as a swarm having taken place? Just thinking that other than a few bees that's pretty much the same as cutting off the swarm cells.

Mike (and shughes), that sounds like the way to go, I'll head into town and pick up a nuc box today and put it together. I really don't need another hive, we don't have the space, though I could put it at my parents place (my father is working on a cutout as of 7 this morning, so he's all good with bees).

Hmm,
I just realised I'm going to need a medium depth nuc box (or there's going to be a lot of space at the bottom of the frames), and I don't think anyone in NZ has them. Not really enough time to make one either

How will they cope with medium frames in a full depth box?

[Mike Gillmore]

Hmm,
I just realised I'm going to need a medium depth nuc box (or there's going to be a lot of space at the bottom of the frames), and I don't think anyone in NZ has them. Not really enough time to make one either

How will they cope with medium frames in a full depth box?

If all you have available locally are deep nuc boxes, then simply cut them down to the same height as the brood boxes before assembly.

[Legion©]

Heya Mike, I had thought about that, the thing is though, I'm trying to get away from using mediums for brood, and go to all deeps for interchangability! I just haven't gotten as far as changing out all of them on the one that wants to swarm yet

I was talking to my father this arvo about making an inner cover for the deep nuc I picked up as they were out of them but had floors, roofs etc, and he's offered to make a medium nuc for me, so that's that problem solved. We've got crap weather forecast until Friday (darned spring weather!) so hopefully I'll get a chance to get in and find that queen then.

On another note, what would happen if you were to put medium frames in a deep box? would the bees just hang comb off the bottom bar to fill the extra space?

[Mike Gillmore]

On another note, what would happen if you were to put medium frames in a deep box? would the bees just hang comb off the bottom bar to fill the extra space?

Yes, they will. You can just keep trimming it off for the time being. One thing that may help reduce some of that would be to add an "empty" frame and give them a place to draw comb up higher. That might delay some of the comb building on the bottom of the frames.

[Legion©]

Well, the answer is yesterday at 9.30am!

Friday I was too busy with work to get into the hive, so it was made Saturdays job to find the queen and put her in the nuc box. They beat me to it.

I had wandered down the back of the section past the hives to pat one of our cats before going to work, hives were normal. Played with the cat for 10 minutes, going back past the hives I noticed quite a few bees on the front of one - far more than normal. Got back to the house and noticed a lot of bees flying in front of the hives. A couple of minutes later and there was a pillar of flying bees about 15m high. I watched them as they lifted up over the trees, moved over the house behind us and disappeared out of sight.

Grabbed my suit and the nuc boxes I'd just put together (had lent my spare boxes to my father so nuc boxes was all I had on hand), and got in the van to see if I could find them. They were starting to cluster in tree the next street over. Long story short (check the photos section for the long story) I got my bees back! They're at my father's place now as we don't have room for a third hive here.

One thing I've found as a new beek, having spare gear around all the time is essential, spare boxes, frames, nucs etc. Every time I want to do something with these hives I'm having to put it off while I build equipment. I guess it's something that I'll just have to work on building up though.

[Mike Gillmore]

I got my bees back!

Fantastic! Glad to hear that.

You did leave some queen cells back in the original hive... right ???

[Legion©]

Yep, there were 3 last time I looked

[Dale Hodges]

What kind of weather is this happening in? aren't yall the oppsite of us?

[Legion©]

Yeah, it's the first official day of summer today. Yesterday was 21C, probably about 16-18 when they left, hive would have been in full sun.

<edit>
What are the chances of an after-swarm, and when is it likely to happen? Any way to prevent?
I haven't found much about after-swarms in my reading, though I haven't gone looking specifically
</edit>