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Author Topic: Panic Time!?!?  (Read 2051 times)

Offline Donovan J

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Panic Time!?!?
« on: June 18, 2019, 09:51:49 pm »
I did a hive inspection today and found about 5 fat queen cells in different positions on the frames but mostly the bottom half and about 5 more queen cups with fat larva and royal jelly inside. I need advice quickly and will post photos below once my phone charges.
3rd year of beekeeping and I still have lots to learn

Offline iddee

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2019, 10:42:49 pm »
Pull the queen and make a nuc with her. It's too late to prevent swarming, so all you can do is remove the queen and enough bees that they think they swarmed. Then let the hive raise a new queen.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

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Offline Donovan J

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2019, 10:56:06 pm »
Pull the queen and make a nuc with her. It's too late to prevent swarming, so all you can do is remove the queen and enough bees that they think they swarmed. Then let the hive raise a new queen.

That's what i was thinking but the hardware store here doesn't sell nucs so I'm gonna put them into another 10-frame deep. I'm just worried that they're going to swarm while I'm at school. I have a top bar hive that I have sitting around and i want to put bees into. Any way I can somehow put a few cells in there?
3rd year of beekeeping and I still have lots to learn

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2019, 11:46:13 pm »
Xerox,
You say you have queen cups with larvae. That makes them queen cells.
Are the ones you call queen cells capped?
If so, there is a good chance the original queen has already swarmed. They normally swarm as soon as they cap the first queen cells.
If that is the case listen to the hive for queen piping. If you hear it, take the hive apart and collect all of the hatching queens and return one of them. Remove any cells that do not hatch out. Have a bunch of queen cages ready.
Jim Altmiller
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Offline Donovan J

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2019, 11:57:43 pm »
Xerox,
You say you have queen cups with larvae. That makes them queen cells.
Are the ones you call queen cells capped?
If so, there is a good chance the original queen has already swarmed. They normally swarm as soon as they cap the first queen cells.
If that is the case listen to the hive for queen piping. If you hear it, take the hive apart and collect all of the hatching queens and return one of them. Remove any cells that do not hatch out. Have a bunch of queen cages ready.
Jim Altmiller

Yes the ones I said were queen cells are capped. The original queen did not swarm because i saw her today. I'm going to put the queen with some resources and brrod into another 10-frame hive body and leave the queen cells to hatch out in the hive and let the bees be bees.
3rd year of beekeeping and I still have lots to learn

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2019, 12:08:24 am »
Xerox,
I removed another hive yesterday that had swarmed so many times there was almost no brood left and was seriously weakened due to super swarming. Keep listening to the hive for piping. Once it starts, it indicates they plan on super swarming.
Jim Altmiller
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline Donovan J

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #6 on: June 19, 2019, 12:25:05 am »
Xerox,
I removed another hive yesterday that had swarmed so many times there was almost no brood left and was seriously weakened due to super swarming. Keep listening to the hive for piping. Once it starts, it indicates they plan on super swarming.
Jim Altmiller

Alrighty then. I only have one queen cage from when i installed the package so it may be difficult.
3rd year of beekeeping and I still have lots to learn

Offline The15thMember

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #7 on: June 19, 2019, 12:34:22 am »
Hey Xerox, I just wanted to mention, make sure you have extra equipment on hand. I had a situation like Jim described earlier this year where one of my hives almost swarmed themselves to death. I split them once and they swarmed twice. I was able to catch both swarms, but I hadn?t been anticipating having 4 hives this early and I didn?t have enough bottom boards or telescoping tops for 4 hives. I ended up having to rig a bottom board out of an imrie shim and use some old roofing instead of a real top for one hive. 
« Last Edit: June 19, 2019, 08:45:48 am by The15thMember »
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Offline Donovan J

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #8 on: June 19, 2019, 01:57:57 am »
Hey Xerox, I just wanted to mention, make sure you have extra equipment on hand. I had a situation like Jim described earlier this year where one of my hives almost swarmed themselves to death. I split them once and they swarmed twice. I was able to catch both swarms, but I hadn?t been anticipating having 4 hives this early and I didn?t have enough bottom boards or telescoping tops for 4 hives. I ended up having to rig a bottom board out of an imrie shin and use some old roofing instead of a real top for one hive.

I didn't expect having two hives either. I was going to go through this year build up the hive have them survive the winter and propagate the hive with splits next year but this is kinda a emergency situation. Will they swarm tomorrow? If they are I may skip school to deal with them. Its the last day and I have all my work turned in anyway.
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Offline The15thMember

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2019, 08:51:09 am »

I didn't expect having two hives either. I was going to go through this year build up the hive have them survive the winter and propagate the hive with splits next year but this is kinda a emergency situation. Will they swarm tomorrow? If they are I may skip school to deal with them. Its the last day and I have all my work turned in anyway.
It?s impossible to say if they will or will not swarm on a specific day for sure. As Jim said, they easily could have swarmed already. You mentioned seeing a queen in the hive, are you sure that queen is the old queen, and not a virgin who just hatched out? 
I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led.  And through the air, I am she that walks unseen.

Offline Donovan J

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #10 on: June 19, 2019, 10:29:55 am »

I didn't expect having two hives either. I was going to go through this year build up the hive have them survive the winter and propagate the hive with splits next year but this is kinda a emergency situation. Will they swarm tomorrow? If they are I may skip school to deal with them. Its the last day and I have all my work turned in anyway.
It?s impossible to say if they will or will not swarm on a specific day for sure. As Jim said, they easily could have swarmed already. You mentioned seeing a queen in the hive, are you sure that queen is the old queen, and not a virgin who just hatched out?

I'm sure of it because it looks like the queen I saw before and its huge so it wouldn't be virgin. I also saw standing eggs on some frames so they haven't started reducing her egg laying yet.
3rd year of beekeeping and I still have lots to learn

Offline FloridaGardener

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #11 on: June 19, 2019, 11:28:32 am »
This may not apply to your case. But it was my experience that when I split the queen and 40% of the bees, and both colonies remained in my little apiary, I had driftback to the original hive. The old Q's colony got small and slow to build.  It became 20/80 instead of 40/60.  When the new Q started laying in the big colony, it wanted to swarm again.  So I took the next split to a friend's house, and all the bees stayed.  So then...I had 3 colonies from the first.  :) 

Re: using your TBH, at one point I made some frames, to use comb from a cutout (in pic). The sides have one pinhole, to pin it with nail or wire.  The wood here is wider than is really needed for stability.  Hope this helps.

Offline Donovan J

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Re: Panic Time!?!?
« Reply #12 on: June 19, 2019, 02:45:07 pm »
This may not apply to your case. But it was my experience that when I split the queen and 40% of the bees, and both colonies remained in my little apiary, I had driftback to the original hive. The old Q's colony got small and slow to build.  It became 20/80 instead of 40/60.  When the new Q started laying in the big colony, it wanted to swarm again.  So I took the next split to a friend's house, and all the bees stayed.  So then...I had 3 colonies from the first.  :) 

Re: using your TBH, at one point I made some frames, to use comb from a cutout (in pic). The sides have one pinhole, to pin it with nail or wire.  The wood here is wider than is really needed for stability.  Hope this helps.

I've heard that a hive can swarm many times. I will try to make some top bar frames like that but will most likely get a package next year and install that.
3rd year of beekeeping and I still have lots to learn