[NCBeekeeper]

I assume the roller coaster weather and the strength of the hive in early March has sent this hive into a run of afterswarms. Has anyone had this problem?

 

[Dave Burrup]

One of our first hives superceeded the queen and the bees made many queen cells. Being very naïve I left all of them in the hive. That hive swarmed itself to death. When the last swarm issued there were not enough bees left to keep it alive and the queens had all left. Now I keep one of the oldest cells, not the oldest, and the youngest cell, and remove the rest. Hopefully the oldest will go on her mating flight without killing the youngest cell. If she does not return, then the hive has another chance.
Dave

 

[beepro]

Dave, the best way to insure a mated return queen is to separate these cells into a mating nuc.
I have a hive that capped some qc but after the first queen that hatched the worker bees
opened up the other qc while in development. I don't know why this had happened. I usually
put 2 qc inside each nuc. Before the mating flight the first queen that emerged will kill off the other
cells. Luckily to ensure everything is fine I split more qcs to different nuc hives. Now I will have a
mated queen so hopefully she can find her way home afterward. Lesson learned here is to diversify the
risk and recombine the nuc if not work out at the end.

 

[sqkcrk]

I assume the roller coaster weather and the strength of the hive in early March has sent this hive into a run of afterswarms. Has anyone had this problem?

I've seen it before. An abundance of queen cells and adult bees may contribute to after swarms, probably headed by virgin queens. Often an after swarm returns to the hive. I have seen that too.

 

[merince]

Yep, many queen cells and tons of bees.