13 swarm cells in my beeweaver hive!

[jeb532]

Dang. 13 swarm cells and two supercedure cells all in the same hive! Looked for an hour and never found the queen. The hive was wall to wall in bees except for a few frames at the third level.

I had 3 deeps on with the 3rd being a "duplex"..i.e. two half width deeps. I pulled the two half widths off, put them on their own special bottom (with screen and beetle trap and opposite side entrances) I put a frame in each side with swarm cells (cut off all but two)...and a frame of brood and nurse bees.. and two frames with starter foundation.

I also had one entire frame of drones which I put in one side of the new duplex (just didn't know what to do with them.)

In the original hive I added three empty frames at each level with a new 3rd deep (not partitioned). I left the supercedure cell and two swarm cells. I also moved some frames from the bottom to the second or third level.

Now tell how badly I've screwed up....'cause I'm entirely new to this.

A full frame of drones

http://s561.photobucket.com/albums/s...rone-cells.jpg

the duplex moved to the side (its in the midddle..the hive on the left is empty)

http://s561.photobucket.com/albums/s...rone-cells.jpg

wall to wall bees

http://s561.photobucket.com/albums/s...ll-of-bees.jpg

[Acebird]

Now tell how badly I've screwed up....'cause I'm entirely new to this.

Are you going for the Darwin award? I can't tell you because I am a newbie too but I wouldn't make so many changes at once because it might give you 15 different answers so you would still be in the the same boat. wondering...

[psfred]

Sounds like you will soon have three hives.

I'd put some supers on the original hive -- with that many bees, they have to be hauling in nectar!

Peter

[fish_stix]

Take the queen and a couple frames of brood and move them to a nuc. Make a new hive out of each of the deeps giving each one a frame with cells on it. Leave the swarm cells alone and let the bees decide which ones to use. BTW, they'll build swarm cells anywhere there's right-age larva so I'd say all of them are swarm cells, no supersedure cells; they don't supersede in the middle of swarm preps. The frame of drones doesn't hurt anything; they wanted them so let them have them. If you're uncomfortable with that many new splits then just remove the queen to a nuc as above and make one big hive out of the 3 deeps and get ready to super them.

[Vance G]

Why don't you take a capping scratcher and see how may mites are on those drone larvae? Those drones will be too late to mate your queens and i bet you will seriously set back the mite population in that hive if you sacrifice them. Freeze them or cut them out and discard. Other than that you have done well I think.

[jeb532]

Take the queen and a couple frames of brood and move them to a nuc. Make a new hive out of each of the deeps giving each one a frame with cells on it. Leave the swarm cells alone and let the bees decide which ones to use. BTW, they'll build swarm cells anywhere there's right-age larva so I'd say all of them are swarm cells, no supersedure cells; they don't supersede in the middle of swarm preps. The frame of drones doesn't hurt anything; they wanted them so let them have them. If you're uncomfortable with that many new splits then just remove the queen to a nuc as above and make one big hive out of the 3 deeps and get ready to super them.

Never found the queen. This hive started from a package last year with a marked queen. On some of the other frames there were random drone cells. The Texas Chief Apiary Inspector was at the Metroplex Beekeepers meeting last night. Based on what he said, and slides he showed, the original queen may have failed/run out of sperm.

[jeb532]

Are you going for the Darwin award? I can't tell you because I am a newbie too but I wouldn't make so many changes at once because it might give you 15 different answers so you would still be in the the same boat. wondering...

haha! All I know is I'd prefer not having a swarm. I still work 50 hours a week, so if they take off I'll never know it till the hive is depopulated.

[jeb532]

Sounds like you will soon have three hives.

I'd put some supers on the original hive -- with that many bees, they have to be hauling in nectar!

Peter

I forgot to mention....almost no nectar stores! I had to put sugar water feeders back on.