[timduvall]

hi everyone.
I need some advice. yesterday i inspected a hive I started from a package in April. A little background on this hive...for some reason, the original queen left the hive a couple months in so i bought a queen and she was accepted instantly. Fast forward to yesterday. The hive is doing rather well. The last inspection i did about 3 weeks ago, i added the second box (8 frame mediums) with some drawn out frames and some undrawn so they didn't feel cramped. Yesterday, i inspected and i found 2 frames with capped swarm cells and one wiht a supercedure queen cell. I was surprised to see this as this box still had a few frames that hadn't been drawn out yet. I assumed they had plenty of room. I was worried they had already swarmed on me so I found the queen adn took a couple frames of honey and brood and bees out and started another 8 frame medium box with them. this was late in the evening so i didn't want to work too much cause they were really getting agitated. Today, i'm going to take another full frame of brood from another hive and add to it.

my questions are:

1. Was I right in assuming they were ready to swarm and did I do the right thing
2. If i take a frame of brood with the nurse bees from another hive and add to the new one, will those nurse bees kill the queen? or should i shake the bees back into their hive and only add the frame of brood
3. i'm concerned with starting a split this late in the year. I was hoping to let this hive really expand so it would be strong going into the winter.

thanks

Tim

 

[Michael Bush]

> i found 2 frames with capped swarm cells and one wiht a supercedure queen cell.

You aren't the first to state things this way, but let me assure you, there is only one purpose for which they are building queen cells. Not two. Your job is to determine what that purpose is. All those queen cells are either swarm cells, supersedure cells or emergency cells. Not some mixture of those. If the hive has plenty of room and is not in a rapid expansion then I would assume a supersedure. If the hive is rapidly expanding and crowded I would assume they are swarm cells. The more cells there are, relative to the number of bees, the more I would suspect swarming. The less cells there are, the more I would suspect supersedure.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm#swarmcellsonbottom

>1. Was I right in assuming they were ready to swarm

Probably not.

> and did I do the right thing

If you let them raise the new queen and then when she is laying well, you recombine, that may be the best thing. You have some insurance in case the new queen fails to get mated and make it back. If you just walk away, it's probably not the right thing... they probably aren't swarming...

> 2. If i take a frame of brood with the nurse bees from another hive and add to the new one, will those nurse bees kill the queen? or should i shake the bees back into their hive and only add the frame of brood

If you blow some smoke in you can probably add a frame of brood with bees with no issues.

> 3. i'm concerned with starting a split this late in the year.

You should be.

 

[timduvall]

Thanks michael. I think i might wait and see what happens with the new queen. The queen in the hive was a newly mated/purchased queen so i was hoping it wasn't her. If the newly hatched queen is laying really well, i'll probably recombine. I'd rather lose out on a $35 queen than lose a split because its too late in the year. I do have another hive that is going really well that i could pull some hatching frames of brood from to help the new split