One of my best hives swarmed today, how should I handle this?

1394 Views 5 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Michael Bush, Apr 21, 2014

Beewildered61

Discussion Starter · Apr 21, 2014

One of my best hives swarmed today. I checked them two weeks ago and saw they were starting to put honey in the upper part of the second deep, so I added a super. Last weekend, they had just started to build a little comb in the super...I opened the hive and checked it today, the entire top deep is full of honey and they had completely stopped building comb in the super.... I saw a queen cell sticking up from the bottom deep between frames, I hope I didn't mash it putting the deep back on... I thought I saw another queen cell down inside on the side of a frame.

I checked another hive today that I added the second deep the first of March and now they are filling it with honey, what can I do to stop them from swarming also? Maybe I waited too late to add the super to the other? Could I harvest the honey out of the deep and put the empty comb back in, would that help?

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Michael B

· #2 · Apr 21, 2014

I like adding empty drawn comb in the center of the brood nest. I also like adding foundationless frames in the broodnest. This way the queen has plenty of room to lay. I harvest the deep outer frames filled with capped honey or uncapped nectar. I use these frames for making splits, feeding breeding hives, and winter feeding.

I also make cut down splits in super strong hives. These are the hives that are going like gang busters and will swarm no matter how much comb I add.

There are two types of swarms...overcrowding and reproductive. One you can manage one you cannot. If I hive wants to swarm it will no matter how much room they have.

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UTvolshype

· #3 · Apr 21, 2014

Beewildered61 said:
One of my best hives swarmed today. I checked them two weeks ago and saw they were starting to put honey in the upper part of the second deep, so I added a super. Last weekend, they had just started to build a little comb in the super...I opened the hive and checked it today, the entire top deep is full of honey and they had completely stopped building comb in the super.... I saw a queen cell sticking up from the bottom deep between frames, I hope I didn't mash it putting the deep back on... I thought I saw another queen cell down inside on the side of a frame.

I checked another hive today that I added the second deep the first of March and now they are filling it with honey, what can I do to stop them from swarming also? Maybe I waited too late to add the super to the other? Could I harvest the honey out of the deep and put the empty comb back in, would that help?

If it's your best genetic material in your first hive, I would go through the hive and pull any surplus queen cells (leaving two), put the frames in a nuc with two additional frames of brood and one of stores. On the other hive you have to open the sides of the brood area but it's likely too late. Two weeks between hive checks won't cut it this time of year and you have to have additional waxed frames to give the queen room to lay by checkerboarding above the laying area.

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Beewildered61

Discussion Starter · #4 · Apr 21, 2014

UTvolshype said:
If it's your best genetic material in your first hive, I would go through the hive and pull any surplus queen cells (leaving two), put the frames in a nuc with two additional frames of brood and one of stores. On the other hive you have to open the sides of the brood area but it's likely too late. Two weeks between hive checks won't cut it this time of year and you have to have additional waxed frames to give the queen room to lay by checkerboarding above the laying area.

I didn't say it ws 2 weeks between hive checks, I said I checked them 2 weeks ago and added a super, then a week later they were starting to build a little comb in the super. So you are saying, in my second deep, which is the top, I should put an empty frame in between the frames of honey?

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merince

· #5 · Apr 21, 2014

If it swarmed, it's too late - the queen is gone. You can see if you have enough queen cells and brood to grab several splits.

Keeping the brood nest open by inserting ideally empty, foundationless frames usually keeps them from swarming by providing more space for the queen to lay. You will have to take a peek into your second hive's brood nest to assess its status.

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Michael Bush

· #6 · Apr 21, 2014

>One of my best hives swarmed today. I checked them two weeks ago and saw they were starting to put honey in the upper part of the second deep, so I added a super.

If I add room during the spring buildup I always try to double their space. If you have two deeps for brood and you are adding medium supers that would be three medium supers to double the space or four shallow supers.

>Last weekend, they had just started to build a little comb in the super...I opened the hive and checked it today, the entire top deep is full of honey and they had completely stopped building comb in the super....

Sounds like they were already backfilling the brood nest when you added the super.

>I saw a queen cell sticking up from the bottom deep between frames

Queen cells don't stick up... so either it was stuck to the top bar below and broke off from the frame above, or it's something else.

> I hope I didn't mash it putting the deep back on...

Always an issue with queen cells...

>I thought I saw another queen cell down inside on the side of a frame.

A good sign.

>I checked another hive today that I added the second deep the first of March and now they are filling it with honey, what can I do to stop them from swarming also?

If they already have queen cells, probably not unless you split them. If they don't have queen cells, then you could probably open up the brood nest and get them to not swarm.

> Maybe I waited too late to add the super to the other?

A typical hive will swarm no matter when and how many supers you put on. You need to open the brood nest.

> Could I harvest the honey out of the deep and put the empty comb back in, would that help?

Probably not.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm

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