[biggraham610]

I had a hive swarm, caught the swarm, they are in a nuc getting ready to be moved into a 10 frame deep tommorrow. Went in the Mother hive today and 2 deeps are literally full of capped and uncapped honey. I wanted to add some empty frames in the middle of the broodnest but what capped brood is left is scatterred across the frames. Amongst the uncapped honey. there were 7-8 hatched queen cells. I thought the first to emerge would tear down the others. I guess i will steal a few frames and add to the swarm hive to give them room. If she does come back, she will have nowhere to lay. I put an undrawn medium in between in hopes they will pull it out and give her at least some where to lay. I dont know. There seemed to be as many drones in there as bees. Man Im lost..........

 

[biggraham610]

Nobody:scratch:
I guess it may be common and an easy fix, Its my first time seeing it. Im Stumped.

 

[Riverderwent]

I'm not sure that I understand your concerns. Is there a queen or eggs and uncapped brood in the mother hive? If so, I would add two empty frames near the middle of the bottom box and add a super. If not, I would add a queen, add a frame with eggs or very young, uncapped brood, or combine the colony with a small, queen right hive. Others likely know better what to do. I hope it goes well.

 

[beepro]

Depending on how big this swarm hive is, I would just add extra undrawn frames for them to draw them out.
If you can find another virgin in the original hive (assuming there are a few?) then do another split with the existing hive frames.
When the virgins are ready to fly then there will be after swarms if more bees still in the original hive.
Digging thru all those frames to find a virgin is not that easy to do. Not every virgin will tear down
the other capped qcs. On a big hive they will just issue more after swarms depending on how many
virgins emerged during the same time. On a small nuc hive the first virgin will tear down the other qcs
with the intention that she will come back to head the hive after her mating flight.
Right now it is unsure if you have a virgin or a mated queen in the original hive even though a few
qcs got hatched. There should be one virgin remaining if they have not killed off each other yet.

 

[biggraham610]

Thanks yall, the more I think about it the more I think there was a secondary swarm. There are no eggs or larvae. Just capped brood. Still 1 or 2 capped qcs. They fill every cell as soon as the brood emerges I guess. Maybe they will draw out the medium in the middle. Do you think I should set out some of the frames and let bees from my other hives clean them out to give me drawn comb I can put in the center so there is something there for her if she makes it back?

 

[tank]

Put a box or two on top they will move all or a lot of that honey when the new queen starts laying and its pretty quick. Plus they will use a lot when she starts spitting out eggs. I like to take down all but 2 qcells to keep from secondary swarms.

 

[biggraham610]

Thanks Tank, Maybe there is hope.:lookout: