I don't know about the final prevention part, but I have had swarms on several occasions go back to the hive. But sooner or later they will leave for good. I don't know if you do a split(s) right then, if that will prevent the swarm. I guess you will find out.

I had a big swarm the other day in a tree near my hives the other day. I didn't like the ladder I was using, wasn't high enough, so I went back to my house (10 minutes) to get a perfect ladder, and the swarm was on it's way back to the original hive, by the time I got back. I screwed around too long.

Last year, at another location, about 1/2 hour from my house, I got a call that my hive had swarmed, and by the time I got up there, they were back at the main hive. Then a week later, it swarmed for real, and by the time I got up there, it had left the tree near the hive where it had originally landed. Gone for good.

Quint

 

By splitting the hives you made what is callled an artificial swarm. If that is done early enough it usually works as a swarm prevention, but you have to find the old queen and get her into the artificail swarm. It might still work if enough bees went out with your splits. The reason the nuc didn't work is because it was too small for the amount of bees in the swarm. To be on the safe side, I would move the original hive with the queen as far away as you have room to. Thirty to fifty feet is best. Then put both of the splits next to each other where the original hive was. This will tend to equalize the hives and further reduce the swarming tendancy.

 

Last year I caught a swarm on progress. Luckily I was able to go into the hive, find the queen and make a split. Within 20 minutes of doing this, all the bees came back into the hive. It was amazing to watch.

 

a cerntralpaguy snip...
So here is my question -- Do bees that are swarming return back to their original box if there is no queen. Or did they sneak away in groups and meet the queen at their rondevous. lol

Another question that I have to ask -- Has anyone ever stopped a swarm in progress from finishing.

tecumseh:
most likely the bees drifted off to the location of the old queen. those units with no queen pheromone (ie no properly mated queen) will likely have few if any adult worker bees.

old school would tell ya' that once in progress the swarming urge is difficult to contain. you might intercede and have some say in when a hive swarms but little control in if it will swarm.

your process of dealing with this swarm was badly flawed in several ways imho. hopefully you will not take this 'criticism' improperly. if you do keep tryin', I suspect you will get to enjoy other mistakes along life's path of dealin' with the bees. of course if you do nothing at all you can elimate your mistakes almost entirely and I suspect a good deal of the joy of beekeeping would be absent also.

best of luck to ya'...

 

Swarm in Progress

I've been lucky enough to witness swarms twice. I would have loved to see you with that sheet! I don't think I would have taken the same approach, but I hope what you did works. I don't get upset about swarms anymore. The steps to prevent swarming needed to be taken weeks before (if anything even could have been done). I was able to retrieve one of the swarms I witnessed using a step ladder. The other went into a swarm trap the following morning. I've had countless other swarms, I just haven't witnessed. them. On the plus side, you have a good strong colony for it to swarm.

 

Many more questions??

I did move the nucs to a different location about 12 miles away. I don't know if I got the original queen or not as I was so focused on the queen cells. I just thought that she left. Hmmm. Another lesson.

Upon reflecting back, I did notice that there were no eggs in the frames, just capped brood. A question to ask the experienced beekeepers, when did she stop laying.

This leads me to another question to ask -- When I created the nucs, some of the frames had several queen cells. Should I have removed all queen cells except for one. Or would the first queen hatching sting all the other queen cells.

When I read about the secondary swarms, does this mean that these bees are following a virgin queen. How quick does a secondary swarm form after the primary swarm occurs?

The next time, I will be much more agressive in my approach. I had assumed that since not alot of bees were going in and out of that hive as compared to another that it was not in any trouble with swarming.

The good thing that I saw among the bees in the air were plenty of drones, which was a good thing -- This amazed me as I didn't I really see them coming and going as with the worker bees. I think that my middle aged eyes need stronger glasses.

I should say that my hives consisted of one deep and then topped by two shallow supers. After this winter, I didn't move the queen down to the deep.
I had put an extra super early on, but the bees didn't really move honey up into that box. Maybe I could have checkerboarded it. Should I have moved her down into the deep and this would have left the shallows open for honey.

Tecumseh, I am never offended by learning and am grateful for knowledge from the more experienced of us.