My Dilemma, any help (advice)

890 Views 4 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Wolfer, Apr 11, 2014

TuscaloosaBK

Discussion Starter · Apr 10, 2014

Here is my problem, I noticed a lot of bees outside 1 of my 6 hives today and they were gathered at the entrance and being really loud so naturally I thought they were getting ready to swarm.
I looked inside and this queen I got last year is still a laying machine and I thought I had kept up with her progress to keep adding room and hopefully stop the urge to swarm, but today I sa 4 closed queen cells.
What can I do now to try and salvage this queen and stop a full blown swarm. Next I have a hive that has a gimp queen and I want to replace her but have no suppliers that are shipping queens at this time.
So, can I take this good queen and put in the gimp queen hive(in a queen cage) after killing her, will they accept her? this would let the other hive finish raising the other queen cells, will this off set that hive from swarming with the old queen gone? Do I just need to do splits on the swarming hive and add a frame with a queen cell on it to the gimp hive? What is my highest % move in this situation. Thanks all, Clark

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WBVC

· #2 · Apr 10, 2014

Was at a lecture last night on the topic of swarming. According to the speaker she would move the Queen to a new hive with some stores, some brood and lots of room to lay.
She would destroy all but one, or possibly two Queen cells (or put the extras in new nucs if so desired) and leave the original hive to be with the emerging Queen. She would continue to check for QC development and get rid of those to prevent after swarms.
Interestingly she said research supports use of Queen pheromones in hives to decrease the impulse to swarm...80% reduction! Reducing general hive congestion was also advised.
Others with practical experience will likely have a better idea of what to do.
One thing this lady said was if QC are closed you had better act quickly!

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RayMarler

· #3 · Apr 10, 2014

Yea, kill the gimp and give the other good queen. It should work fine. Make sure the box with all the queen cells has room to expand, some empty combs and such. You can also remove a nuc with swarm cell in it to get another hive if you want. If not, destroy all cells but the best one or two and let them sit. They should raise a new queen, most times without swarming, since you've removed the old queen.

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dixiebooks

· #4 · Apr 11, 2014

I think I would create an artificial "swarm" by moving the queen and about half the bees to another location. Then, I would kill the lackluster queen and give those bees one of the queen cells from the good colony. Then create essentially three nucs, each with one of the remaining queen cells.

It is too late to stop the swarming impulse.

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Wolfer

· #5 · Apr 11, 2014

WBVC said:
Was at a lecture last night on the topic of swarming. According to the speaker she would move the Queen to a new hive with some stores, some brood and lots of room to lay.
She would destroy all but one, or possibly two Queen cells (or put the extras in new nucs if so desired) and leave the original hive to be with the emerging Queen. She would continue to check for QC development and get rid of those to prevent after swarms.
Interestingly she said research supports use of Queen pheromones in hives to decrease the impulse to swarm...80% reduction! Reducing general hive congestion was also advised.
Others with practical experience will likely have a better idea of what to do.
One thing this lady said was if QC are closed you had better act quickly!

This lady is exactly right!!

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