[Huntingstoneboy]

Ok folks need some advise on these swarms. First, I pulled all the old queens out and moved them to a different yard (5miles away) on May 9th. On May 18th i made several splits...some went into 5 frame nucs some stayed in 2 story deeps, and some in a one story deep, depending on number of bees and queen cells available. I thought these cut-downs would prevent all swarming.....boy was I wrong! 1 swarm on Sunday the 25th, 1 yesterday, and 1 this morning.... these are the ones I've seen! I have only managed to catch 1 so far. Funny part is I look in my nucs and hive boxes and it is business as normal. Some are a bit smaller than others but all look good. When I made the splits, some frames had 5 Q cells on them....was it a mistake to leave that many in the hive? I was under the assumption that 1 virgin would kill the rest and that would be that, but now I am thinking some of the bees are leaving with the "extra" virgins. Any thoughts are welcomed!

 

[GaryG74]

Had the same problem with some splits I made this spring with queen cells. Those splits with one cell have grown like "normal" into busy hives. The one or two with multiple queen cells have swarmed. Guess the answer is try using only one cell per split. If virgin doesn't make it back to hive, either try again with another cell or go the eggs/young larva route. I even had one swarm that had plenty of room swarm itself after about 1 1/2 months in the new hive. Luckily I caught them a second time. When I checked the home hive there were three queen cells so I made a split with one QC and left two in the larger hive. Put the split with it's new queen into an 8 frame deep yesterday. The original swarm is going like gangbusters in their second hive.