Possible swarming or supercedure? dont know

[bossqwjw]

On one of my hives I have found several queen cells 4 or 5 maybe and one supercedure lcell thats capped
 The brood pattern is spotty in the lower deep, the upper deep has a frame or two of mostly new eggs none capped yet and they have started back filling the lower brood chamber with honey.

They are pretty aggresive 10 or 15 guards were boncing off me and trying to sting me threw my suit.( good test of new ventilated sting proof suit..... it is)

I was wondering if I should go ahead and split them or see if tbey are superceeding.
Whata the thoughts.

[BeeMaster2]

Do you still have a queen, when you do the split (sounds like you do)? If so, just split the hive in half, be sure to put frames with brood, Q cells, pollen and honey in both hives, put the brood in the middle of the bottom deep. Try to move the existing queen to the new location if you find her. Reduce the opening to the medium opening, put grass, or a branch right in front of the hive to re orient the bees to the new location. The older bees will probably go back to the old location. Do this for 2 reasons. One, to make the Q think she swarmed. Two, this leaves more bees for the new hive, it will be another week or so before the new Q will be laying eggs, maybe 2 weeks before she is laying large numbers of eggs.
Good luck.
Jim

[bossqwjw]

I am not sure of I do still have a queen or not. I believe I do, in the frames with small eggs they are standing in the middle of the bottom of the cells.

 So I take that as a queen, and not a laying worker.

I am pretty sure I am to blame for this situation, I think I was too slow in adding supers and let them get to the verge of being honey bound.

[BeeMaster2]

You probably do have a Q, at least during that last inspection. Remember, the bees put her on a diet for about a week to force her to loose weight so that she can fly. It also causes her to stop laying eggs. Eggs standing straight up means they are fresh, the next day they start to bend over, by the third day they are laying sideways.
Laying workers put the eggs on the sides and usually lay more than one egg per cell.
Don't feel bad, we have all done it. Even if you kept ahead of them with supers, it doesn't mean they won't swarm.
Jim

[bossqwjw]

My last inspection was yesterday, and am planning on doing the split tomorrow as soon as I get home from work. Hopefully that will be quick enough to prevent a problem.

It will be my first split, so thanks for the luck wishes......... I need it. Lol

I am kind of excited about doing it.

[Kathyp]

be sure that you  make your split with the old queen and leave the queen cells and some eggs behind. 

[Finski]

.
You should bye a new queen and not to rear daughters from sick queen.
Spotty brood pattern in lower part is perhaps reason from cold.

To plit this kind of hive has no idea.

[bossqwjw]

For better or worse its done.
Did not have much in the way of uncaped eggs. Only 2 frames so put 1 in both had capped brood and lots of honey capped and uncapped.

So with crossed fingers, i will see how it goes.

[Finski]

For better or worse its done.

Yeah! Final job!

A negative person would say " It cannot go worse"
A positive person would say:"Sure it can".

[rdy-b]

**I was wondering if I should go ahead and split them or see if they are superseding.
What the thoughts.**


 one thing to consider is the location on the frame where the bees made the cells-generally if its not a forced superseder
 the bees will make swarm cells at the bottom of the frame and superseder cells from about the top half-you all ready know you have a queen -trust the wisdom of the hive-you may not need to split--  ;) also i would not worry to much about any bad genetic traights that may cary over-they made Honey i dont see any problem with that-- :laugh:  ;)  RDY-B

[bossqwjw]

They were making both type of cells. That was one of the things that confused me about the whole thing

[Michael Bush]

>They were making both type of cells.

Bees are never making both supersedure and swarm cells.  They may be in both typical locations but there is only one reason they are building cells and it's one or the other.

[bossqwjw]

Lol, Yes but if they make superceedure cells across the top inch, and they are making swarm cells on the bottom of the frames.....

 Which are they doing?

[bossqwjw]

Checked the girls today new queen in new split and brood in the other.
 
Everything has gone great!   :piano:

Thanks for the advice!

Oh and almost.forgot to mention for some reason the bees in the hive I split from are smaller tham the bees from my other hives, must be new genes i suppose from what ever breed with the new queen.

All the other bees are from same stock so dont know where they came from but hoorayyy for genetic deversity. Lol