Author Topic: Swarm Queens (Read 10250 times)

TJ · « **on:** June 10, 2004, 03:34:19 pm »

It is now swarm season and many hobby beekeepers are looking for free bees. My first swarm was 3 feet up a maple tree in someones back yard. Are they all that easy? :lol: Well, after a week, my new swarm, which has lots and lots of bees, has built a ton of wax, but I can't find any sign of the Queen. I thought I did a good job capturing this swarm. I even saw many bees flying into the box I dumped the cluster into. I assumed this meant they smelled the Queen in there. So I ordered a new Queen, but now I was told maybe it was an afterswarm with a virgin Queen and she still needs to go on her mating flight. How long should I wait to find out? If I wait an extra week and there was no Queen in there the whole time, have I lost my chance to introduce a new Queen? I have not introduced the new Queen yet.

Lesli · « **Reply #1 on:** June 10, 2004, 03:43:01 pm »

Quote from: TJ

It is now swarm season and many hobby beekeepers are looking for free bees.

I'm one of them! AND I'm in Ithaca. If you see another swarm, especially one that close to the ground, email me!

beemaster · « **Reply #2 on:** June 10, 2004, 04:42:06 pm »

The Internet's good, but compressing a swarm and attaching it to an email - I'm not sure if Explorer supports that yet. Of course Netscape may have a plug in :shock:

And you thought I knew NOTHING about computers - lol

Lesli · « **Reply #3 on:** June 10, 2004, 05:34:30 pm »

Quote from: beemaster

The Internet's good, but compressing a swarm and attaching it to an email - I'm not sure if Explorer supports that yet. Of course Netscape may have a plug in :shock:

And you thought I knew NOTHING about computers - lol

:lol:

The daily swarms I catch are in the College's spamtrap, alas. And those are more like cockroaches than bees!

steve · « **Reply #4 on:** June 10, 2004, 07:03:56 pm »

TJ,
It's been my experiance that after a week to ten days you can find neither eggs or brood it might be prudent to requeen, considering that you also mentioned that your swarm had a large amount of bees which generally indicates a primary swarm. Most after swarms (virgin queens)are tipically not large swarms. Take care, if you wait to long to requeen, over two weeks, you run the risk of creating laying workers....
Steve,

Lupus · « **Reply #5 on:** June 11, 2004, 01:44:53 am »

The first swarm issuing from a hive is usually the old queen. Old swarm queens are often considered suspect and replaced by beekeepers collecting swarms.

I had a similar experience with the swarm I just housed. My swarm was smaller and the queen was not laying after a week. I used a hive tool on her, created a honey flow with syrup and gave them a new commercial queen.

I frequently put the queen cage on the top frames of the hive and watch to see how they react to her. If they: swarm over the cage in large numbers, bite at the wire, try to get their stingers into it; I do not leave it in the hive. When the workers act relaxed and try to feed and groom her and her buddies I either just let her out over some brood frames or soften the candy and let them release her.

If after a couple of days they still do not seem to want her I pull 3-4 frames of brood and young nurse bees from my busier hives. I put a screen or Dual Screen divider on top of the swarm hive and place the 3-4 brood frames over it, filling the rest of the super with foundation or comb.
This basically makes a young nuc over the swarm. Young nurse bees usually accept queens easily within a day of being over the queenless swarm.

I have one of those young nucs over a split that did not want their new queen in my apiary. Tomorrow I will: pull the nuc and screen off the split, place a sheet of newspaper over the top of the split, and place my young nuc on top of the newspaper. The bees will slowly chew through the paper gradually uniting into one happy, queened hive. A queen laying eggs with nurse bees to protect her is about as safe as she can be.

The nuc introduction method involves some labor but it is one of the safest ways to get a new queen into a hive. Many queens get killed when queen cages are just shoved in and left.

Good luck!

TJ · « **Reply #6 on:** June 11, 2004, 02:01:17 pm »

I think I will try your young nuc over the colony method. It sounds very logical. Will the new Queens pheremone be able to reverse or suppress any laying workers? Would these older workers ever accept the new Queen once they have gone bad? Maybe I should just keep the seperating screen in until all the old, cranky bees have died off. If I have older workers coming in the bottom with nectar, will they pass it through the screen to the younger colony above it? I love the theory of it. The older swarm, which is huge, can feed the growing nuc above, but they can't get at the Queen. At some point in time the swarm below will be smaller than the nuc above, and by then they should all "know" one another and can be combined. I'm going for it.

Finman · « **Reply #7 on:** June 12, 2004, 03:31:32 am »

Quote from: Lupus

I frequently put the queen cage on the top frames of the hive and watch to see how they react to her. If they: swarm over the cage in large numbers, bite at the wire, try to get their stingers into it; I do not leave it in the hive. When the workers act relaxed and try to feed and groom her and her buddies I either just let her out over some brood frames or soften the candy and let them release her.

pull the nuc and screen off the split, place a sheet of newspaper over the top of the split, and place my young nuc on top of the newspaper. The bees will slowly chew through the paper gradually uniting into one happy, queened hive. A queen laying eggs with nurse bees to protect her is about as safe as she can be.

Good luck!

That is my favorite methods too. Laborous but sure.