[heaflaw]

My strongest hive recently swarmed. There seem to be somewhat fewer bees. A week ago they had half a super full of honey. When I checked today, they had the same amount or a little less. Whereas other hives have brought in about half a super full in the past week. I'm in the middle of my main flow and the flow will end completely in a month. If I wait for a queen to hatch, get mated and begin laying well, that hive will not bring in any honey.
What are your thoughts on requeening immediately with a queen from a swarm I got last week? How best to go about it?

 

[Beeslave]

If the flow is on they will still produce honey. If you add a mated queen it will still be 4 wks before any of her brood hatches and ends up being field bees

 

[heaflaw]

Maybe this is not true, but, I've always thought that once the brood emerges, the bees will backfill that area with honey instead of placing it in the honey super where I can get it. If I add a laying queen, she will need that room for laying & force the bees to place the honey upstairs.

 

[Beeslave]

If you have a virgin that gets mated the bees will know this. Then they will open the brood nest back up and move that honey into your supers. Since you want to use a swarm you could do a newspaper combine. That is less risky compared to adding a new caged queen that could not be accepted because of a virgin that already emerged or a cell they have became loyal to.

 

[heaflaw]

Thanks BeeSlave.

Here's my plan. If you see a problem, please let me know.

I want to take out all the queen cells to make nukes. Since I may miss one or two, will the bees eliminate the remaining queen cells (and not swarm again) once they have combined?

Will spraying with vanilla scented sugar water help mask their scents or is that a waste of time?

 

[odfrank]

>>well, that hive will not bring in any honey.

You have lost your work force to the swarm. A foreign introduced queen will not help.

 

[kiwiBee]

just a couple of things to think about heaflaw.
Are you going to cut out the queencells for your nucs or take the whole brood frame?
If you take the whole frame you will deplete that hive even more and will be unlikely to do much more honey so decide if you want to do nucs or honey.
One other thing I would think about is have any queen cells hatched?
have a look at each frame shaking off the bees so you can get a good look it's very hard to see all the queen cells if you have the bees still on the frames.
If you are confidant there are no hatched cells then a queen intro will probably be ok although I have had newly introduced queens swarm a week after being put into a swarmed hive so it's not gauranteed.
Obviously if there is a hatched queen cell you have a virgin in your hive and shouldn't introduce a mated queen.
In the normal day to day business of a hive it's 6 weeks after emergence for a bee to become a worker so the brood thats left in your hive will become your honey gatherers in 5-6 weeks do you still have a flow on then?
Lastly If you are running 2 deeps a great way to keep your hive strong after a swarm is to put all your brood and bees into a single deep and take away the other deep you will be amazed at what honey they can do.
kiwi

 

[heaflaw]

Thanks guys. That's what's so great about this site. Everyone is so willing to give good advice.