I am not an expert but it appears you did just fine. Why would you possibly want to give up, the fun has just begun!

I thought I had all my swarm cells in order too and now have had 2 swarms from my hives in one week...go figure. When the weather is warm and the bees are a buzz there is just no stopping them!

Try to find a club that offers a split class. I'm doing my 2nd split class this Sat can cannot wait. We go to old hives and split them for people with an instructor. Great hands on experience...

Good luck to you!

 

I am not an expert but it appears you did just fine. Why would you possibly want to give up, the fun has just begun!

I agree. Sounds like you handled it as well as could be done. You may want to check for brood sooner than a month just in case you moved the old queen to the new hive.

 

The only mistake you made was not having more equipment already on hand. Putting the swarm back in the hive probably wasn't the best thing to do, but hey, gotta do what you gotta do.

 

And don't clip the queen! She doesn't know she can't fly.

 

Thanks for the replies. So,now there is a TON of bees sitting out on the front of the old hive and the new hive seems fine. Are these nurse bees trying to make it back in or is it an army of ticked off ladies waiting for me?

As far as clipping her majesty, I get different opinions on that. My first year,I had an unclipped queen and that just led to a whole mess with swarming,going queenless and then dealing with laying workers.

Am I right to assume that I see no eggs or uncapped larvae in the old hive because it's pretty much honey/nectar bound? Will the new,undrawn frames eventually help with this? And ,how long should I keep the excluder on? if at all.

Keep the advice and info coming guys,I'm beginning to feel a little better about things.

 

,how long should I keep the excluder on? if at all.

What are you trying to do with it? I'm scratching my head now about your situation. There comes a time when you just got to sit back and see what happens. The more you mess with a hive the more you will get confused as to what created what reaction.
If I didn't see any brood or larvae in a hive I wouldn't have touched it because it could have been in the process of supersedure. If it was in the process of swarming it is too late and they will swarm anyway unless you kill the hive.

 

The only advantage of a clipped queen that I can think of is that if they do swarm they may only go a few feet. But what can happen is they try to swarm but since the old queen can't fly thy come back. And then they swarm with a virgin. So you are left with an aging queen and fewer bees. Not cool. That or they end up swarming anyway and end up going queenless.

 

The trick is to not let them get into swarm mode..... I wouldn't clip a queen personally either, just creates a bigger mess. If your bees are swarming, you're not inspecting enough or don't know what to look for early on. Foundation may or may not help at this point as there's no active broodnest now. They may ignore them and just make fatter combs next to them with all the stores coming in. You need drawn comb for the queen to lay in to re-establish the broodnest as it sounds there's not much brood around and since she's in swarm mode, the queen won't be laying which is why you really need to find her and get her out of there.

 

If there are truly no eggs or uncapped larvae in the old hive, and you didn't see the queen, then it seems likely they have no queen. She could have gotten lost or injured in the swarm attempt and re-hiving. Since you have multiple supercedure cells you could put one or two back into the original hive while leaving the rest in the new hive. That way both halves of the split will get new queens.

It's also possible that your clipped queen is still in there but is in "swarm mode" and not laying. If you really like her you could wait a few more days and check for eggs again, but if they truly are queenless and queen-cell-less, you will need to get a queen or some eggs/open brood in there soon or they will develop laying workers and become truly unwieldy.

 

A couple of points:

First you won't find supersedure cells at the same time as swarm cells. Supersedure cells are usually on the sides of the frames in the brood nest area only and you will usually only find 5 or less. Swarm cells can be anywhere. Literally. The will be on the bottoms of bars, sides of frames (where supersedure cells also can be), in little nooks in your comb. You can find from just a few to 30 in a hive but rarely will you find 5 or less swarm cells in a full sized hive.

If you can't find the clipped (and I don't clip queens either) queen, you need to leave cells in both hives since you don't know which hive your old queen is in now.

Use this as a learning experience. You need to remember what your hive looked like (number of bees, the way it acts, etc) now, so that you know what to look for in future years. You need to learn what a hive that is getting close to swarming looks like and what time of year it is. A hive can be more crowded without a flow than when one is on. So you need to learn when flows are and what to look for in a hive to understand when to take action to lessen the swarming urge. This won't happen in a couple of years. It will probably take a few years of errors (swarms) to get a feeling of when to act. But learning is one of the best aspects of beekeeping.

 

Thanks again.

Should I get that excluder off of the bottom and allow them to swarm? I'm guessing that she wouldn't be able to make it very far with being clipped. That way I can scoop her up ( hopefully) and put her into the new hive. Thoughts?

And still LOADS of bees on the outside of the hive. It's getting to be 7 PM here. Will they move it back in?

 

I'm confused as well. If you have the queen you should think about doing a split if you are concerned about a swarm.

 

If the queen excluder is on the bottom of the hive is it possible for the drones to come and go? Is there a top entrance or such for the bees? Maybe your drones were locked out when you made the split and they are the ones hanging out front of the hive.

 

No, the drones will get stopped as well. Not a good idea.

 

I agree with Luterra, I think you were queenless before the split. The hive with the supercedure cells will soon have a queen. I think you should add a new queen to the old "original" colony.

 

Lose the excluder, generally an excluder on the bottom is just a bad idea. Sometimes it works sometimes ur left with a dead queen all by herself after the bees try to swarm or abscond without her and you've locked all the drones inside now as well.

 

I don't quite understand the original hive situation either, but sure sounds like it does not have a viable queen. If it were mine, I would move one of those frames with the queen cells on it back to the original so the it doesn't go hopelessly queenless. Then I would remove the bottom queen excluder. If the queen is still there, she will be superseded, if not you will have a virgin shortly. Try to find some comb with empty cells to place in the brood nest along with the queen cell frame.

I agree with RiodeLobo, check the split for eggs in about 3 days to ensure the queen is not there.

Luke

 

Or purchase a new queen or 2 if they are available.
Luke

 

Thanks for this post.

Hi, All! Don't confused yourself with this post. It is actually very simple process.
1) His hive swarmed on him with a clipped queen. He caught them and put them back into the same hive along with the clipped queen.
Then put the queen excluder on hoping they will stay inside this same hive.
2) He went in for a hive inspection and perform a split. On inspection, he saw 4 boxes all 90% honey/nectar bound. So he did the split hoping to go back in a month to find A new queen. Because he could not locate the old queen to take her out on this inspection.

I think he combined what he had done, what he hope to accomplish, and the current hive situation ALL into one complex story
full of twist and turns. But it is o.k. since I got a good analytical minds.

He want to know what is our recommendation now since he is so new and watching vids not help him much.

 

On inspection, he saw 4 boxes all 90% honey/nectar bound.

I think this number is a bit high because he said he did some checkerboarding and the bees were not drawing out comb. Analyze it again.

As a newbie we see something and want to fix it but we don't know how. Doing something feels better than doing nothing. If it is an experiment then go for it. Otherwise come to beesource first.

 

wow guy, in texas they have a whole lot of people who are expert beekeeper , you should get to know some so in the time of trouble you have people who has been doing this for years help you out , doing so will bring your knowledge up on keeping them and knowing what to do, make friends by going on a beeclass or two even ask the teachers who teaching the class and also ask them who are the beekeeper in your area, good luck, =)

 

You did ok. It would have been better to hive the swarm in a new box and location, but done is done. By the way, a bottom excluder on a new swarm is sometimes a good idea until they get settled. Might keep them from absconding. Once they get some brood going you can remove it. I would go back through the old hive and see if you can find your clipped queen. If you can, go ahead and create a nuc with her. You may also find her in the new hive if you didn't account for her when you split.

 

Beepro
'' But it is o.k. since I got a good analytical minds.''....I always thought you were smart...but now I know you are 'two' smart

 

Wow! Thanks for the replies!

Okay,here's what I did and what I'm going to do;

Today,the weather has really taken a turn for cold,windy and rainy. I didn't want to mess with them really at all but I needed to get that excluder off. I was able to lift all 3-boxes and get the excluder off..quickly! I obviously took a few out with this but after the advice,it needed to be done. Also,if they want to swarm still,I'll just allow it to happen naturally and try to deal with it then.

This weekend when the weather is hopefully back to normal.I will inspect the new hive for any signs of a queen and then place one of the frames with brood/queen cells back into the old hive and then just hope for the best. This way each hive will have a queen cell and the old one will also have that supercedure cell in it.

Does this seem to be the right thing to do? I just want to give them a couple of days before going back in there and destroying their house again. I would like to purchase a new queen for the old hive but BeeWeaver won't even start shipping queens until May 5th..to me,that seems way too long and by that point I may be dealing with laying workers,again. Sigh.

Thanks again for all of the help and for any future advice.

 

Just make sure they both have eggs or a queen cell and you'll be fine.