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BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DOWN UNDER BEEKEEPING => Topic started by: Lord Viykor on August 11, 2012, 12:39:55 am

Title: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on August 11, 2012, 12:39:55 am
I was in my yard today and noticed a swarm in my yard and over into the neighbours yard. As first I thought it was robber bees, the swarm has now settled in a tree on the far side of my neighbours block.

So I opened my hive and the top box is only partially full of honey cells after my extraction a little while ago. As I'm still very new to this I thought this would be a sign that they aren't swarming, I then notice my queen was on the outside of the hive walking along the brood box.

I captured her and re-inserted her in the hive entrance, I haven't opened the brood box to have a look yet. I'm assuming I could have a virgin queen about and the hive has swarmed. Wasn't sure though considering the queen was still near the box.

Any advice is greatly welcomed as I have no idea, I was going to set up a nuc box with some foundation to try and catch the swarm. Also wasn't sure if it would return considering the queen is/was still in the box.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: bernsad on August 11, 2012, 01:22:58 am
I think it would be highly unusual if the swarm was next door and the queen for that swarm was sitting on your box. That queen should be safely ensconced inside the swarm. Rather, I would suspect that the queen you found crawled out of the box after you opened it. How were the numbers in the hive when you opened it? Busy, or did it seem light on?

By all means, go and catch that swarm before they get away. Put the nuc underneath the swarm and shake it in, put the lid on and let the remainder of the bees find their way in to get settled. Move it after dark to where you want to keep it. Good luck and don't forget the photos if you can. :-D
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on August 11, 2012, 03:11:20 am
Definitely a swarm, it's a lot of bees in the tree. I'm currently trying to box them all, them seem to be moving into it slowly.

The box is all empty frames 5 with foundation on, I assume I should throw in a honey/pollen one from my existing hive?

(http://s9.postimage.org/omwn23bln/IMG_6940.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/omwn23bln/)
(http://s14.postimage.org/5cskj61nh/IMG_6942.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/5cskj61nh/)
(http://s8.postimage.org/z6onla64h/IMG_6954.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/z6onla64h/)
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on August 11, 2012, 03:17:42 am
Apologies for another post I wasn't sure how many images I could link. The ones below are of my existing brood box, as I now next to nothing I was hoping someone could tell me if I have any problems. To my untrained eye it looks I've photos I've seen of foul brood.


(http://s17.postimage.org/6s2gk5gpn/IMG_6913.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/6s2gk5gpn/)
(http://s13.postimage.org/72c84h88z/IMG_6916.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/72c84h88z/)
(http://s17.postimage.org/fcvsbbqvv/IMG_6917.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/fcvsbbqvv/)
(http://s11.postimage.org/7e0agp6lr/IMG_6922.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/7e0agp6lr/)
(http://s8.postimage.org/65owpmb29/IMG_6936.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/65owpmb29/)
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Johnny253 on August 11, 2012, 10:08:15 am
Your swarm will be fine, it shouldn't take them long to establish themselves. If you want to speed the process up a bit though, you could ad a frame of honey/pollen, brood or drawn comb.

Your brood frames look fine to me. If they have AFB, the cells will appear sunken and the capping will have holes in it. I can't see any evidence of that in your frames.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on August 11, 2012, 06:40:53 pm
Your swarm will be fine, it shouldn't take them long to establish themselves. If you want to speed the process up a bit though, you could ad a frame of honey/pollen, brood or drawn comb.

I was going to add a frame of drawn comb from my hive today to it, thanks for the tip.

Quote
Your brood frames look fine to me. If they have AFB, the cells will appear sunken and the capping will have holes in it. I can't see any evidence of that in your frames.

Again thanks, it good to know everything is ok. I was surprised how little brood there is than I remember it is winter. I've only had bee for 10 months so still so  much to learn.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: BlueBee on August 12, 2012, 02:00:28 am
So I’m guessing from your photos, that the conclusion is your bee’s are the bees that swarmed?  I see queen cells on your brood frames and not an over abundance of bees on those frames, so I assume at least half the original bees flew the coup at some point?  Where is the queen that you saw in your original post?  Is it still in the original hive?  I don’t see a lot of honey left around those brood frames, but probably enough for the number of bees I see.  It looks like you don’t have much of a winter there either?
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on August 12, 2012, 02:54:25 am
So I’m guessing from your photos, that the conclusion is your bee’s are the bees that swarmed?  I see queen cells on your brood frames and not an over abundance of bees on those frames, so I assume at least half the original bees flew the coup at some point?  Where is the queen that you saw in your original post?  Is it still in the original hive?  I don’t see a lot of honey left around those brood frames, but probably enough for the number of bees I see.  It looks like you don’t have much of a winter there either?

I don't think they're my bees, I opened the hive today to grab a fully drawn comb and a partially drawn comb to put in the new hive. There is still a lot of bees in my original hive and the new box has probably more again.

The queen AFAIK is still in the original hive, I'll check the new hive in a week or so once they've settled down a bit to see if she did leave. I did notice the queen cells in on the brood frames, the lack of brood cells has be  bit concerned though. The original hive had 10 fully drawn combs and 10 partially drawn combs in it.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: BlueBee on August 12, 2012, 12:49:55 pm
OK, that sounds good.  I was just a little concerned about your original hive because there wasn’t very many bees on the frames you posted photos of.   But if the bees are in there and you still have a queen in there, you should be good to go with 2 hives now. 

That really is a pretty good sized swarm.  Are they still bearding all over your box?  If so (and it’s late winter over there) you might want to add another box to give those bees room to roost.  I don't like to have a bunch of bees beading outside my hives in bad weather.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on August 13, 2012, 03:29:55 am
OK, that sounds good.  I was just a little concerned about your original hive because there wasn’t very many bees on the frames you posted photos of.   But if the bees are in there and you still have a queen in there, you should be good to go with 2 hives now.
 

I hope the queen is still there  :) I'm assuming she is the hive is very active and rather calm to approach. The worst is I'll have to either re-queen or they'll hopefully use one of the existing queen or supercedure cells.

That really is a pretty good sized swarm.  Are they still bearding all over your box?  If so (and it’s late winter over there) you might want to add another box to give those bees room to roost.  I don't like to have a bunch of bees beading outside my hives in bad weather.[/quote]

They've all settled in the new box well, I did add another box to it for room as you suggested. Need to get some more frames now. The new hive was still a bit agitated when I put the second box on yesterday. I hope I got the queen with the swarm, I'll check on them later this week and see if they've settled down.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: BlueBee on August 13, 2012, 01:51:51 pm
Don’t wait too long to get frames in that second box.  The bees (especially swarms) have a tendency to quickly build comb in open spaces.  That results in a HUGE mess if you don’t nip it in the bud.

When you check your original hive, you can get by just looking for eggs or young larvae.  If you see eggs, you know you’ve had a queen in there recently (within 3 days) and she’s very likely still there.  This might depend upon your climate though.  In the winter the queens can shut down depending upon how cold you get.  But if you’re having swarms now, your winters must be pretty mild.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: the-ecohouse.com on August 14, 2012, 01:58:35 am
mate that is a VERY healthy swarm
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Satch on August 14, 2012, 03:11:41 pm
My son asked the same thing I was thinking.  Is that drone brood?  Cells look awfully tall to be brood.

Might check for a laying worker.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: BlueBee on August 14, 2012, 11:24:20 pm
Looks like mostly worker brood to me.  The question I have: Is there larvae on those frames in the original hive or just capped brood? 
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on August 14, 2012, 11:25:53 pm
My son asked the same thing I was thinking.  Is that drone brood?  Cells look awfully tall to be brood.

Might check for a laying worker.

It does look like a bit like drone brood, I'm learning a lot this week about my bees. I'll check for laying worker as well.

Looks like mostly worker brood to me.  The question I have: Is there larvae on those frames in the original hive or just capped brood?  

I've got both I checked the brood box out well today trying to find the queen.

Good news is my orignal hive still has it's queen and she has been busy laying eggs, the bees are very active again. I've reduced the 2 supers to 9 frames instead of 10 as I was having problems getting all ten frames to fit.

The two frames I removed went into the new hive and I checked it again today and confirmed it has a queen in it. They have been very busy building up on the frames with both foundation and no foundation. No evidence of brood yes though, hopefully I'll be seeing brood once they build up the frames enough.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on August 17, 2012, 10:44:53 pm
I filled the top box of my swarm hive today with frames and foundation. One thing I've noticed is there is no brood cells yet.

I would have expected to see them starting to appear, it has only been a week since I boxed up the swarm though. They have built up a lot of comb on the foundation less frames.

Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: bernsad on August 17, 2012, 11:31:14 pm
Do you mean no capped brood or no brood at all? The instructor at the beek meeting the other night suggested that the queen will lay in a cell that is still only half built and let the bees keep on building around the egg. Perhaps it's only a few more days until you have capped brood.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on August 17, 2012, 11:57:28 pm
Do you mean no capped brood or no brood at all? The instructor at the beek meeting the other night suggested that the queen will lay in a cell that is still only half built and let the bees keep on building around the egg. Perhaps it's only a few more days until you have capped brood.

No brood at all so far, lot of comb and they've also consumed a fair bit of the 2capped off combs I put into the box.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: BlueBee on August 18, 2012, 01:40:29 am
1.  Your swam might have a virgin queen.

2.  Your swarm might have no queen

3.  Eggs are hard to see  :-D
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: BlueBee on August 18, 2012, 01:48:38 am
The virgin queens still have the distinctive look of a queen, but they are not as big as a mated laying queen.  

If there is a queen in the swarm hive, you should eventually see some brood.  If you don't see anything after a couple of weeks, I would add a frame with eggs from your other hive if you can spare it.  The purpose of that would be to make sure your swarm bees really have a viable queen or not.  If they start to build queen cells, your swarm queen might be a dud for some reason.  Give it a couple of weeks first.  Patience is a virtue  :)
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on September 01, 2012, 03:15:03 am
Checked my 'old' hive and new swarm hive today, I really love living in the sub-tropics.

I robbed 10 frames in my original hive on the 23/06/12 and they've nearly finished capping it all off again. The new hive has capped and uncapped brood on nearly every frame in the brood box, give them a couple of months and the super should be nearly capped off and be ready for another one.

edit:speeling
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on October 26, 2012, 10:47:43 pm
Checked my 'swarm' hive today and find virtually no brood at all, looks like the queen either died or swarmed again.

Not sure whether to try a frame of brood with supercedure cells from my other hive or simply requeen.

Also think the hive is in a poor spot it doesn't get any direct sunlight, only a lot of filtered light. Seems to be encouraging a lot of hive beetle being in the shade.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: petert on October 29, 2012, 06:58:46 pm
Went and had a look at my hives.Two have queen cells.I made two nucs from them,destroying those cells that were left.These were still single story.,and so are now 30% new frames.
What chance that the queen won't lay new queen cells now.If I put the new empty frames in the middle,perhaps she might see it as ever more roomy?
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on December 23, 2012, 06:53:15 am
Quick update on the swarm I got back in August, I either rolled the queen or she died off of other causes back in early November.

After speaking with a guy from the local bee club about getting a queen from him he suggested trying a frame of brood from my other hive to see if they'd raise their own queen.

This worked a treat, when I checked it last week it has plenty of bees and visible brood in the bottom box. The first super is fully capped so I added a second one on Saturday.

It's looking promising so far, hope it keeps going well. Also added a slotted bottom board to help control the SHB it is getting a lot in the chux wipes trap.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: max2 on December 23, 2012, 08:23:55 pm
Quick update on the swarm I got back in August, I either rolled the queen or she died off of other causes back in early November.

After speaking with a guy from the local bee club about getting a queen from him he suggested trying a frame of brood from my other hive to see if they'd raise their own queen.

!!!remember to give a frame with eggs ( they stay eggs only for 3 days) or very young larvae - one day old - and it will work.

This worked a treat, when I checked it last week it has plenty of bees and visible brood in the bottom box. The first super is fully capped so I added a second one on Saturday.

It's looking promising so far, hope it keeps going well. Also added a slotted bottom board to help control the SHB it is getting a lot in the chux wipes trap.

The Chux have only been used in SE Qld for a few months as far as I know. I find that they do help with SHB but also trap a few poor bees.
Title: Re: Are my bees swarming?
Post by: Lord Viykor on December 23, 2012, 10:23:50 pm
I find that they do help with SHB but also trap a few poor bees.

That they do, the bees on mine were still alive to I picked them off and let them go back in the hive.