Really Congested Hive, Advise Please.

[Beaches Bee-Haven Apiary]

Hey y'all, I've also posted this a BeeSource.com so some of you have probably seen it already or will. But I wanted to get some more opinions on a broader scope here.

My mom has two hives. One hive swarmed about three weeks ago and the other is really really congested. Yesterday she inspected them and found that the hive which had swarmed didn't have any brood but a lot of opened swarm cells (is this usual?). In the congested hive she found a lot of capped swarm cells and a lot of brood. So we cut off all the queen cells and swapped the medium brood frames with the medium broodless frames from the other hive (we swept off all the bees of course!) Now we're planning on removing the boardman feeder she had on the congested hive and adding an empty deep super of foundation and a shim w/entrance on top of the medium brood super and below the honey super which was added a few weeks ago.

Should this relieve the congestion somewhat? Or should we pursue a split? Will the bees still push to swarm?

Thanks for your input.

-Nathanael 8-)

P.S. I really would rather see them swarm and try to retrieve them!:-P But, then again, if they were my bees I'd probably try to keep them from swarming. :)

[Brian D. Bray]

Cutting out queen cells is not a good way of preventing swarming, it is, however, a very good way to go queenless.  If you had numerous open swarm cells it is possible that the hive issued more than one swarm.  Bees often swarm several days before the new queen hatches, cutting out the queen cells after they are capped may mean the bees swarm and there is no new queen to replace her.

If you observe unhatched swarm cells it is much better to do a split rather then cut out the cells.  That way you get 2 queenright hives.  When doing such a split remember that to simulate the act of swarming  it is best to move the queen to the new hive and let the new queen take over the old hive.

[Beaches Bee-Haven Apiary]

Cutting out queen cells is not a good way of preventing swarming, it is, however, a very good way to go queenless.  If you had numerous open swarm cells it is possible that the hive issued more than one swarm.  Bees often swarm several days before the new queen hatches, cutting out the queen cells after they are capped may mean the bees swarm and there is no new queen to replace her.

If you observe unhatched swarm cells it is much better to do a split rather then cut out the cells.  That way you get 2 queenright hives.  When doing such a split remember that to simulate the act of swarming  it is best to move the queen to the new hive and let the new queen take over the old hive.

Thanks for the suggestion. If it were my hive, it would have been split by now. However, my mom really doesn't want any more hives and has put splitting as a last resort. We started beekeeping all worried about the bees dieing off because of the pesticide sprays, and now mom is all worried about ending up with more hives than she wants! :) We'll see what happens.

BTW, the open cells had larvae in them. There weren't any that had been ripped open or hatched, I checked all that.

-Nathanael 8-)

[Sean Kelly]

I said this in another post, but if you split and don't want the extra hive you could always sell it.  There's people like me out there that can't have enough bees and would be very happy to take them off your hands.  It'll solve your swarm issue making the bees happy, you'll make some cash, and you'll still be helping to increase the bee population!  :-D

Let us know how it turns out!

Sean Kelly