Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DOWN UNDER BEEKEEPING => Topic started by: johnauck on December 19, 2013, 06:26:11 pm
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A few weeks ago I split my obs hive (three frames, 2 full brood and one uncapped honey), I took one of the brood frames, the queen and the honey frame and installed them in a NUC near the OH entrance. I estimate that about I removed about 1/3 of the nurse bees.
All appeared ok, the remaining bees quickly drew out the two foundation frames, although I was not sure if they had made any emergency queen cells, still a bit crowded on the remaining brood frame.
Last week (to my surprise) the obs hive swarmed, there was no capped brood except for a few drone cells.
Is this common? I am thinking if several virgins emerge at the same time there is some swarm instinct going on?
This morning I spotted a virgin queen in the obs hive, not laying yet.
I have observed talso this year on a larger hive, I removed 3 frames of brood and two honey and the queen, opened up the brood. and they still swarmed. The swarm was definitely a virgin, as I captured it and she did not start laying for over a week.
Any thoughts/advice would be helpful.
cheers
john