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Author Topic: Somethings happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear!  (Read 1568 times)

Offline gguidester

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Had a very crowded hive swarm a week ago last Sat. Caught the  swarm and they seem to be doing OK.  Today another swarm, maybe a little over half the size of the first, and they were on the exact same limb of the same tree.  Captured them as well but took them to a different yard.  Saturday I had removed feeders and added supers to my original 2 hives from last year.  Thought the super would give the one that had swarmed 10 days ago or so something to do and keep them happy.  Noticed them bearding the last couple days though, so today when I caught the swarm I also took a couple of frames with some brood and one nearly full of honey and took it with the swarm to the new location.  If this was a virgin queen swarm what will happen?  Is that likely?  Still tons of bees in this hive.  Whats next?  I don't know if I can afford to build wooden ware to keep up. Thanks in advance for all your help.

Offline SgtMaj

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Re: Somethings happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear!
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2009, 12:47:11 am »
If both swarms were definately from the same hive, then the second swarm was an afterswarm which will definately have a virgin queen (along with the original hive they came from). 

When you took the brood frames from the original hive, did you also take the bees that were on the frames?  If not, the original hive will likely swarm again since they will now have a bunch more unemployed nurse bees.

Offline gguidester

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Re: Somethings happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear!
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2009, 12:59:49 am »
It looked like the frames I took were about 1/4 to 1/3 capped brood but no larvae.  One of  the 3 was almost all honey, from one of the out side frames.  Sounds like I might have compounded the problem.

Offline SgtMaj

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Re: Somethings happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear!
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2009, 01:13:43 am »
It looked like the frames I took were about 1/4 to 1/3 capped brood but no larvae.  One of  the 3 was almost all honey, from one of the out side frames.  Sounds like I might have compounded the problem.

Possibly, but I was asking more about the nurse bees that were on the frames covering the brood.  If you didn't brush or shake any bees off the frames then you probably did no harm.  If you are still concerned about them swarming yet again you could pull out a frame or two of brood and just shake the bees on those frames into one of the other swarm hives then return the frame to the original hive to cause fewer nurse bees to be "unemployed".

There is also the possibility that these swarms were not reproductive in nature, but simply due to overcrowding, if that's the case, then doing anything to move bees from the overcrowded hive to the less crowded ones will help, but opening up the entrance, adding another box to the original hive or adding a second entrance to the hive would also be good ways to alleviate the problem.

 

anything