[Hoxbar]

I just got two established hives. Both are very health and doing nicely. One of my hives is going to swarm soon. I opened the hive yesterday and was shocked to see a hive full of bees and when I say full I mean full. I found queen cells on almost every other frame. A few of the cells were already open! I have no additional hive bodies to split my hive. I know they are going to swarm but my additional equipment is being shipped and might be here Monday. I doubt I can wait till then. I added a honey super to the hive thinking that might help. THere is a thunderstorm moving in and was wondering if the rain would help keep them from swarming. Any suggestions?

 

[BeeCurious]

Get a couple of coolers or some wooden wine boxes and try to save some of your resources. You could use cardboard boxes if you need to.

Is your queen marked?

You need a beekeeper friend across town.

I'd follow some advice that was given on another thread about requeening recently. You need to get some nuc bodies and accessories to have on hand.


Good luck,

 

[Hoxbar]

Are you saying split my hives into a cooler? put a couple of frames into the cooler and leave the lid open a bit? I guess it would work.... No my queen is not marked, I got the hive off an old beekeeper friend. The hive has not been medicated in ten years and the bees are very healthy and mite free. He has let them do their thing. He has some empty hive bodies but no extra frames.....

 

[BeeCurious]

Get some screen at the hardware store to add ventilation to the top of any kind of box. It will be a shame to loose all those cells.

 

[BeeCurious]

I wanted to bump this up to see if someone might offer some suggestions to help this person.

 

[Michael Bush]

I would probably try to find the queen, take one frame of brood and one of honey and shake several pounds of bees into a cardboard box or anything (as mentioned above). Prop the combs upright. If you can't find the queen, then shake off all of the brood combs into a box (they will be mostly nurse bees who won't know the way home) and put a couple of brood combs with queen cells and a couple of honey frames in the box. Either of these may buy you some time. Meanwhile a top bar in place of the frames (or better yet a frame) to fill the gaps you created by removing the frames will give them somewhere to build the comb they will most likely build to replace the gaps. A swarm in the hand is worth two in the bush...

 

[BeeCurious]

Hoxbar,

How did you make out?

Mail me a couple of cells!

 

[nkhd1]

I was told that if you have open queen cells - i.e that the queens are hatching - that the swarm has already taken place.
The story goes that the queen leaves just before the new queens hatch.

Is this so?