To split or not?

[GeeBee]

I just examined the hive in my back yard today, and found a queen cup about 1/3 of the way from the top of the very center frame in the top brood box. After a few minutes of squinting, I've decided I'm 99% certain there's an egg in there. (definitely going to switch to black plastic foundation) These frames were installed in an empty brood box at the end of last season on a late split we made, and on my first inspection of the year (early march), were not drawn out. Since the warm snap we had last month, I've been feeding them lots of sugar water. 8 of the frames in the top box are now drawn out with an impressive array of worker brood on 6 of the frames (plus more drone brood than I've ever seen before, whole patches of it all over several frames). I haven't checked the hive since early march, when I found the queen in the bottom box and was VERY careful not to disturb her.

After examining all of the top box, here are my observations. Large 3x3 patches of drone brood on both sides of the center 4 frames, solidly packed sealed worker brood inbetween the drone brood. No queen found on any of the top box frames, but eggs were discovered only on the frame with the queen cup, including an egg in the cup. No other queen cups or swarm cells were found, but I did tear out a large amount of burr comb between the boxes when I removed the frames. I didn't see anything that resembled a swarm cell, but I can't be 100% certain I didn't rip one out... I did not examine the bottom box.

My conclusions are that the queen is healthy and laying within the last two days, as the presence of eggs shows, and that the workers are busy drawing comb and tending the young. The hive is getting very packed, as the top box filled up only in the last month despite the cold snap we've experienced. I have two nuc boxes I just built for the purposes of splitting this hive, but was planning to wait a week or two to do so.

My question is this: Is the presence of a single occupied queen cup evidence of swarming or supersedure, and should I leave it alone, or use it to make one of the two splits I was planning to make next week? And should I instead split them now? Keep in mind I didn't examine the bottom box for fear of disrupting the queen, so I do not know if there are additional cells in the bottom box.

If anyone can answer soonish, I'd really appreciate it, I have to go out of town on the weekend, and would like to get this taken care of today before it cools down or tomorrow. With the chilly weather we've been having recently, opportune times like now are in short supply.

[HONEYDEW]

There are always some queen cups in a hive just in case... A photo would be the only way to say if its a just in case cup or a real ready to go queen...

[GeeBee]

Unfortunately, the camera in my cell phone is broken (kids) so I'll have to wait until my wife gets home with her phone to take a nice photo. I'm positive there's an egg in there though. Will update soon with a photo. Also, I used the term queen cup, and while I've seen them before, this did not look like a shallowly indented cup. It looks more like a full blown cell with enouth room to fit a small jelly bean inside.

[Acebird]

There should be more than one cell right? If you made the decision to go into the brood nest you are already there and disrupted it. What would be your concern to just tip the bottom box back to look at the bottom of the frames for more cells?

[GeeBee]

I was going to split the hive today, and was going to go through both boxes when I did so, but after seeing just the one cell, I thought maybe supercedure was the name of the game, and didn't want to disrupt things further if that was the case. Here are a few photos.

A photo of my hive setup in my back yard.
http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...h/P4120177.jpg
http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...h/P4120176.jpg

This photo is indicative of the middle 6 frames in the top box. All covered in bees and larvae just so.
http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...h/P4120166.jpg

Here's a decent photo of the cell in question.
http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...h/P4120163.jpg

A closeup of one of the patches of drone brood. Interestingly, when I shook the bees off, I could see some of the drones emerging, so that's a good indicator of the age of this set of brood.
http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...h/P4120169.jpg

The side of the frame in question after shaking the bees. Again, brood pattern is indicative of the entire top box.
http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...h/P4120172.jpg

And once again, the cell in question after shaking.
http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...h/P4120174.jpg

After shaking the bees off the frame I was able to get a better look inside, and there is most definitely an egg inside. I'm no stranger to swarming, and queen cells in frames, I'm just surprised to only find one. Even in the top box there should have been more than one? I think I'm still going to split the hive eventually, I just am wondering whether or not doing so NOW would jeopardize the parent hive's brood or honey production. Plus, it's always nice to learn more about what's going on inside the hive. I must say, even without the questions, these photos look great, and I love the brood pattern. Both worker and drone pattern is very tight. It's also worth mentioning that the empty cells on this frame have already been refilled with eggs.

So, there you go, any advice on what's going on inside my hive and whether or not to split now or wait would be immensely helpful. Thanks alot!

GB

[tbb39]

Im no bee pro . but it looks more like a Supersede cell.

[GeeBee]

That's what I was thinking too, but I can't figure out why they would supercede. I know that there are a thousand reasons that can set it off, but the only one I can think of is the sheer amount of drone brood I saw would indicate that maybe the queen is running out of juice? We haven't had any mating weather here at all yet save for one week in early march, so I'm concerned that supercedure could end in failure if the virgin queen can't get out and mate..

Should I split this hive or leave it alone until after the supercedure? Alternatively, I'm considering splitting the hive anyway and simply using eggs from my other hives off location. The genetics in those hives look good, with no sign of supercedure or swarming (yet).

[hpm08161947]

At least down here... at this time of year... I would have no problem splitting a hive that looked like that. Of course your weather conditions are quite different. But I would keep the split idea in the back of my mind, as it may well save you from having them suddenly decide to split themselves...

[GeeBee]

At least down here... at this time of year... I would have no problem splitting a hive that looked like that. Of course your weather conditions are quite different. But I would keep the split idea in the back of my mind, as it may well save you from having them suddenly decide to split themselves...

Ordinarily, I would quite agree with you, and in fact had planned on splitting this hive today. But this is the first time in my 5 years of beekeeping that we've ever caught a potential supersedure before or during the event. I'm just not sure what I should do with/about it. All I want to know is if I can/should split it during the supercedure, or wait until it's done then split it? And if I wait, how long should I wait? till the new queen is laying? before? after? Or just don't touch it for a month, period?

*edit* The reason I'm a little antsy about splitting this hive is because I want to move it out of our neighborhood. With the warmer weather approaching and children out in the yards, I really don't want to risk someone getting stung by a random bee and then blaming it on me as the 'most likely' source. I know I can move it without splitting it, but I wanted to do it all at once. Split it, then move the splits to my apiary at work. The hive was originally at our house last fall for two reasons; 1) because I treat my back yard as my BICU or 'beekeeping intensive care unit' for hives that aren't doing all that well or need extra attention, and 2) because it provides me with a beekeeping barometer by which I can determine what if anything I need to do to my hives at work, and when. But now that it's healthy and doing fine, I really don't want to keep it in close proximity to my neighbors. So I kinda want to figure out what to do, get it done, and move the hive to a safer location. Too bad the weather here in michigan isn't really cooperating with me. Sure would like to have more than one warm day in a row (when I'm actually home to work the bees, that is).

[HONEYDEW]

what I am seeing is a very poor quality queen laying poorly unfortunately. I also do not see it as a very good attempt at a supercedure, I would buy a new queen ASAP or a frame of eggs and larva from a friend beek if possible....good luck and don't waste time or you'll miss the flow

[GeeBee]

After having seen the laying patterns of my hives at work, I absolutely agree that the hive at home has a poor laying pattern. But if you wouldn't mind, could you tell me why you think it's a bad attempt at supercedure? I just don't have alot of experience with superceding, so I don't know by what criteria to judge whether or not the attempt is going to be effective or not.

Also, I think I'm going to split this hive as planned, but instead of allowing the bees to raise queens from their own eggs, I'm going to add frames of eggs from my hives at work which have much better laying patterns. I didn't get pictures of them as it was starting to chill down last night when I went to check them, but hopefully today when I make the splits, I'll snap a few photos. I'll post here a photo of the frames of eggs I'll add.

Also, another question as well; I know that bees from two different hives can co-exist when combined properly, but haven't quite learned the secret yet. I've done the newspaper combine, but that's about it. Let us assume for a moment that I've split my hive at home into 3 hives (parent and 2 nucs) adding two frames of brood to each nuc, and one frame of eggs from my hives at work. I want to also add a shake or two of nurse bees from my hives at work. My previous attempts to simply shake bees from one hive into another had ended quite badly, so the question is, how do I add nursebees from my good hives into my nucs without all the bees starting a bee scale nuclear war?

[HONEYDEW]

well bad attempt from my perspective because normally in supercedure there would be more than only one queen being made by the girls, normally the bees would try 3 or 4 cells to better the odds of a queen being hatched, matted, and to return to reign. if this cell doesn't work the hive is then queenless and doomed to die....hope this helps

[GeeBee]

Thanks for the explanation. I don't know if this is the only cell or not, as I didn't go through the bottom box at all. It is the only cell in the top box though, so chance are your assessment is correct. Your opinion mirrors my own conclusions, and I appreciate the positive feedback. I guess I'm not quite as clueless as I thought! I'll probably split this hive up and get some eggs from my good hives off location and squash the supercede cell. Weather was good today, but I didn't have the time to work them. Hopefully the rain they're forecasting for this weekend manages to miss us, so I can get another chance to get everything done.

[Acebird]

so the question is, how do I add nursebees from my good hives into my nucs without all the bees starting a bee scale nuclear war?

I believe you shake the frames over the hive you are taking the frames from. This will leave the nurse bees still on the frame. Then you put the frame in the hive you want to add nurse bees to or brush off the bees if you don't want to add the frame.

[GeeBee]

As a followup update to this thread, I split this hive today. I found a dozen or so more queen cells in the lower box, about half had eggs or small larvae. 3 were only a day or so away from being capped.

I took a frame of open larvae, a frame of capped larvae, and a frame with at least one occupied queen cell and put them in a nuc box along with a frame of honey and a frame of pollen and two frame shakes of nurse bees. I made two splits this way, and left the more mature queen cells in the parent hive to hatch. Hopefully they'll right themselves and get on to business. I guess I should have gone through the bottom box last week when I created this thread. The cell I photographed clearly was not the only supercede cell in the hive.

Even if the queens turn out to be only of average quality, I intend to start grafting queens from a hive of exceptional quality later in the year for fall requeening. I plan to requeen all my hives going into the fall so the queens outbreed the mites and help me control the population naturally. The hive I intend to graft off of is exceptionally calm, and the egg laying pattern was a solid mass of capped brood. Nearly every frame in the top box was full of capped cells wall to wall. This early in the year, I was shocked. I hope it stays this way through the summer!

[GeeBee]

So I again checked this hive today for progress and here's what I found.

9 supercedure cells in the middle of the frames of which 6 were capped, and 6 swarm along the bottom of the frames of which 2 were capped. This is after I split the hive last friday and removed at least four total supercedure cells for my two nucs as well as about half the population. I don't recall seeing the swarm cells friday when I checked them, but I can only assume that from the timeline, they were indeed present.

So, with half the hive population gone, does anyone think this hive will still swarm? In addition, I really want to harvest some royal jelly so I can start grafting queens this year. I'm thinking I should cut all the swarm cells out and use the uncapped ones for the jelly and squash the two capped ones. I verified the queen was in the hive on friday when I made the splits, but today I was unable to find her even with the decrease in population. I also saw no new eggs but still some larvae, so I want to leave all the supercedure cells in the hive. I really don't want to actively propagate this hive's genetics as I have better hives I'd like to do that with, so I don't really want to use the swarm cells for nucs, just jelly.

Am I on the right track or is there something more I can/should do? Particularly with stopping the swarming instinct. Oh, also, I'm moving this hive off location tonight as well, will that help stop the swarm countdown?

[taxonomy]

So, with half the hive population gone, does anyone think this hive will still swarm?

In my estimation there is only one way to prevent a swarm after the swarm impulse is present. You need to artificially swarm it by getting the queen and the flying bees out.

Plan A: locate queen. place queen and some capped brood + drawn comb/honey and foundation on the original hive location. Remove larvae and eggs queen cells to another location.

Plan B: shake all bees into empty super with 2 frames of capped brood only and place eggs open brood/eggs above a queen excluder. nurse bees will move up leaving queen trapped below. remove nurse bees to new location.

Result, the flying bees return the to the original location where the queen is. The situation is much like a swarm, with queen and flying bees only. This is an artificial controlled swarm.

The other bees in new location (can be only feet away) now longer have the swarm queen present and when the new queen emerges she will will take up residence. Flying bees return to old location, new emerging bees orient to new hive.

If you simply split the old swarm queen will still swarm and in the other half of the spit hive will still have a lot of flying bees and so be almost like an unswarmed hive, and so could swarm as well. In neither case does simply reducing the population short circuit the swarming instinct.

[GeeBee]

You need to artificially swarm it by getting the queen and the flying bees out.

I'm pretty sure the queen is gone. She was being superceded anyway, as I've already mentioned. This hive was pretty agitated today when I went through it, much like a hive without a queen at all. I split the hive nearly a week ago before I saw any evidence of swarming, otherwise I would have done something about it earlier. What about cutting out the swarm cells? I've heard that helps stop swarming, and is something I'm thinking about doing to harvest the jelly anyway.

Also, I plan on moving the bees anyway, I'll bring back some equipment from my other location today and try out what you've posted. Perhaps I can work it into my plan to move this hive offsite in the long run.

[GeeBee]

I found the queen. She was in one of the two splits I made and moved out to my yard. *sigh* Oh well, there were supercedure cells in there, maybe they'll still follow through with it. I'm going to cut out the swarm cells in the parent hive, harvest the jelly, then shake all the bees out in front of an empty hive body to simulate a swarm. I also made two walk away splits from my two strongest hives, and made two more splits from my weakest, effectively turning into 3 nucs. I now have 4 parent hives and 6 nucs out in my yard.

I did find my future grafting queen though. Here she is:

http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...h/P4180182.jpg

And her brood laying pattern as well:

http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...h/P4180185.jpg

I thought I knew what I was doing, but after today, I'm just not so sure anymore...I'm really hoping some of these nucs take off, because I really need some confidence boosting!

[jaybees]

I might not be following you but if you moved the queen to a nuc then you have simulated a swarm. Why cut the queen cells in the parent colony?