[dastevoe]

I went through my hives today and in one I found 2 capped Q/cells in the middle of a frame in the upper brood chamber. Then 2 frames over I found capped Q/cells at the bottom of a frame. Are these BOTH swarm and supercedure cells in the same box ?
I took each frame and a frame of capped brood plus a frame of nectar & pollen and put them each into a 5 frame Nuc.
I also managed to cage the Queen as I was doing this. She was very much reduced in size.
Did I do the "right" thing in making the Nucs ? Will the Queen right colony still swarm now that they have "slimmed" her down ? Is there a different way I could have dealt with the situation ?
Any pointers would be welcome.

Thanks,
Steve

 

[JWPalmer]

To stop the swarm, the queen needs to go into one of the nucs and leave two capped cells in the original hive. Even that is no guarantee if she has already stopped laying but it is your best shot. The idea is to make the bees think they have already swarmed, which is why this type of split is referred to as an artificial swarm. I had to do one of these a few weeks ago when I found both capped cells and the original queen. It worked.

 

[rwlaw]

Yup, what JW says. I just caught one with 3 unsealed cells on the comb, they were getting ready to go to the trees

 

[dastevoe]

Aww shoot, so I need to go back and swap the old Queen out with one of the frames with cells....
How much time do I have ? will after work tomorrow be soon enough ?
Steve

 

[JWPalmer]

You may have bought yourself some time by taking away the swarm cells, maybe not. Especially if you missed one. Do what you can when you can, worst case is that the queen is gone along some bees. You still have capped cells but now you either cut one off a frame to install back in the main hive, or recombine one of the nucs.