[ravikmd]

Just curious. What do you do with swarm cells in the parent hive after a split in which the queen was moved to the new hive? I left three capped queen cells on adjacent combs and broke down the rest. I've read that the queens will sting the other cell bound queens after emerging , and also that each queen will leave with a cast swarm. What experiences have others had with this situation?

Thanks.

 

[ruthiesbees]

If you have reduced the population enough to make the bees feel like they have swarmed, then the first emerging queen should stay put, but she will sting the other cells to death. Any chance you have another hive that you can steal 2 frames from and put in a nuc and put one of the queen cells in? It's always nice to have a backup queen should the other one not return from her mating flight. Otherwise, you just let all 3 queen cells emerge in that hive and the bees will sort it out.

 

[ravikmd]

I took quite a few bars and bees with the split. The parent hive still has 15 bars of honey and brood left. I suppose I could do a another smaller split with a bar that has one queen cell on it.

 

[ruthiesbees]

If it were my hive, that's what I'd do since I've been struggling with queenless issues in all 3 of my hives. The plan would be to return the 2 frames back to the doner hive in about 3 weeks. You won't be making a permanent new hive. If by chance both queens get mated, then you have to decide how to get rid of one of them. Or you can keep the 2 frame nuc as a backup until fall, in case you need a queen. But it won't be strong enough to go thru the summer dirth without feeding syrup, and it may not be strong enough to defend against robber bees in summer either. However, Murphy's Law will dictate that one of the 2 queens won't make it back from her mating flight, so it's nice to have an extra one.