Two weeks ago I removed my overwintered queen from a booming hive and set her up in a nuc. I left the parent colony to raise some queen cells from the larvae that stayed behind. I then took the cells that were produced and split them into five nucs with nurse bees, capped brood and stores. All of the nucs are doing well; the new queens are emerging (watched one emerge today, heard piping too) and stores are built up nicely. I left a few cells (four) in the parent hive.
It turns out that even a blind squirrel can find an acorn, and this squirrel has come to realize that he somehow managed to perform a rather successful cutdown split. Our spring flow was strong, and the parent hive is absolutely full of honey (2 deeps, 2 mediums), bees and a few queen cells that have not yet emerged (but will soon, I believe).
Am I right in assuming that, once the new queens emerge in this honeybound hive, that they are likely to leave with a swarm?
If that is so, am I also correct in assuming that getting some empty drawn comb into the brood box ASAP might be the best thing I can do to prevent a swarm? If there's nothing to be done, I'll chalk it up to experience, but I sure would like to gain some more hive management skills as a result of this situation.
Thanks in advance.
-Pete
P.S. I do try to follow the edict in my signature line, but when you don't know what it is that you don't know, then things get a little dicey.
It turns out that even a blind squirrel can find an acorn, and this squirrel has come to realize that he somehow managed to perform a rather successful cutdown split. Our spring flow was strong, and the parent hive is absolutely full of honey (2 deeps, 2 mediums), bees and a few queen cells that have not yet emerged (but will soon, I believe).
Am I right in assuming that, once the new queens emerge in this honeybound hive, that they are likely to leave with a swarm?
If that is so, am I also correct in assuming that getting some empty drawn comb into the brood box ASAP might be the best thing I can do to prevent a swarm? If there's nothing to be done, I'll chalk it up to experience, but I sure would like to gain some more hive management skills as a result of this situation.
Thanks in advance.
-Pete
P.S. I do try to follow the edict in my signature line, but when you don't know what it is that you don't know, then things get a little dicey.