Bee Swarm in September in Indiana......Give me a break!

[Rick_ Sprague]

One of my best Hives swarmed today. It came from a hive with 2 deep hive bodies and a super. I was lucky enough to see them land in a pear tree about4' off the ground. I put them in a deep hive body with drawn comb. I am a 2nd year Beek. What do I do now? It is too late to make stores this far north and make it through the winter. Do I re-induce this hive back to the original hive, and eliminate 1 queen? If so which queen? Do I stack the 2 hives together and place a queen excluder between the 2 hives and try to get them both through the winter? Man, I'm really lost on this, can anybody help? This was (is) such a good hive?

Rick

[danmcm]

placing a queen excluser between the two will kill one or both once the cluster forms and the queen can't follow because the excluder... start a nuc and feed the heck out of it what are you risking, if temps drop soon and they aren't taking syrup do a newspaper combine before freezing temps are consistant.

[squarepeg]

i had a very small swarm issue from one of my strong hives last week. it was no more than a few hands full of bees. i decided it was too late for them, unless i donated lots of resources from several of my strong hives, which i was unwilling to do.

[hilreal]

I picked a small late swarm at my friends hives in southern MI last year about this time. Put it in a nuc box with drawn comb and fed. Made it through the winter and was a boomer this summer. We could still have a number of weeks of golden rod flow for them to collect pollen and nectar. If you're willing to put in a little effort you might be able to save it. Another option would be to put in a full size box over a double screen over top a strong hive with food. I would make sure to keep dry sugar on it all winter.

[Rick_ Sprague]

Is it too late to be properly mated? I'm sure the drone population is very low here. We got frost today.

[squarepeg]

my concerns as well. so far i have inspected 6 out of 12 hives starting a week after the small swarm issued. all have eggs.

could it be that these small late swarms are really from supercedure? i sure would like walt wright to weigh in on this.

[Ben Franklin]

My biggest swarm ever was 9/11/2012. Over filled a 5 frame nuc. They are on drawn comb, filling with honey and pollen. I saw the queen the next inspection,,4 days latter. Have not seen eggs yet, 9/22/2012.

[Rick_ Sprague]

Thanks everyone! I will try to baby the swarm with syrup. I'll do my best to save them. Could this be bee suicide?

[indypartridge]

I've heard of a couple folks in Indiana have swarms the last few days - very unusual. The latest I've seen was around Aug 31/Sep 1.

Like you, I'd be concerned about mating. There might be a few drones around, but whether there's enough for a queen to be "well mated" is questionable. I'd probably nurse them along in a nuc for a couple weeks then re-combine them, keeping the (old) swarm queen.

[lupester]

I just missed getting a huge swam last night. Weird this late in the season but down here we have more time before winter.

[jmgi]

Recombine them at this point in the season, however you must find and remove the virgin queen that is with the parent colony first. You want a laying queen this late in the year to produce as many young bees as possible for good wintering, hoping a virgin gets mated this late is very risky, not to mention the lack of egg laying for a couple weeks. Make sure there are not any more queen cells in the parent hive before you recombine. Swarming out again after recombining should not be an issue anymore this late, this was just a freak swarm. John

[Rick_ Sprague]

Kinda what I thought too. I will give the new queen a couple of weeks and check out the brood pattern. If it is good I will nurse the new Nuc. If not, they will have a homecoming party.

[Rick_ Sprague]

Thanks John

[hilreal]

Is it too late to be properly mated? I'm sure the drone population is very low here. We got frost today.

I hope not. I have a trap out that I gave some eggs to about 10 days ago that have capped Q cells. Hope the hard freeze holds off. I still see some drones coming and going so I am hopeful.

[Rick_ Sprague]

I checked my old hive today. There are still plenty of drone in the hive, but no capped brood. Makes me wonder why they swarmed. They had plenty of space. I may end up putting the swarm back into the original hive if my new queen isn't laying properly. I never saw so many queen cells! Wish this was July. I could have made a lot of splits.