Splits - Why give them more than one queen cell?

[Duane]

I've read that when you are splitting a hive with queen cells, give each more than one cell to ensure at least one makes it out.

This morning, I noticed a lot of bees flying out of one of my splits.  Must be orientating, not to be worried.  But the way they were pouring out like their house was on fire made me wonder.  The air was filling with them.  Fortunately, I still had leftover equipment from doing the splits nearby and had lemongrass oil handy.  I moved the box over to the tree they were concentrating on, rubbed lemon grass oil on it, and soon they landed on it.  Some started going in and there got to be less and less on the sides.  We'll see if they stay there.

I looked in the hive they came out, still a lot of bees there, so they didn't abscond.  This is day 15, expecting the queen to have hatched out tomorrow +/-.  The hive was at the original location, I moved the original queen to a new place, leaving the old location to raise queen cells.  Last Thursday, I divided the hive giving more than one queen cell to some.  This hive, I gave a little less resources knowing they were getting all the field bees.  I had a frame of food, a couple frames of bees, empty frames in the bottom box and empty frames in the top box some with drawn comb.  I was expecting the field bees to bring in nectar.

So, if anyone can answer, why did they swarm?  Hardly anything there, plenty of space.  This is from the same line that last year when I saw a swarm left, I divided up the box knowing multiple queen cells in each and they swarmed and swarmed.  With the others, if any had more than one cell, can I expect them to swarm, too?

[Duane]

And I should ask, given the current situation, that the box is under the tree and needs to be moved, the one they left from is now weaker than before, what should I do now?

My thought is to move the new box to the original location, and move the weakened box elsewhere, possibly finding the queen or remaining cell and calling it quits on that box moving the resources over to the new box.

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Mr. Duane:  looks like you did everything correctly, even move the original queen to new location...  the number of queen cells is not quainitative to swarming, wether one or a dozen cells.

Now understand, bees sometimes do the unexpected, after a swarm, a virgin daughter hatches and swarms again.  Kind of unusual, but it has happened.  This is called AFTER SWARM and in this particular case, the number of cells, at least two can affect swarming.  Remember after swarms are not the norm.

Some strains of honey bees are prone to swarming, may be noting you did, just genetics at work.

The hive with the original queen that you moved, let it be,,, Unless the queen makes more swarm cells.

Consider feeding 1X sugar (no oil) to weak hive and watch for robbing.
Blessings

[little john]

I noticed this advice just yesterday, while looking for something else:

Only leave one Q/C, whatever the size of the colony. If you leave two, there is a chance the colony will swarm with the first virgin queen to emerge, unless the colony is very small. Don't ever think nuclei or artificially swarmed colonies won't swarm!  http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/queencelluse.html

FWIW - I often insert two ...
LJ

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

LJ, most of the time when using natural queen cells, I just use what is on
the frame, wether it is one cell or several queen cells to make a split.  I have had some bad luck when trying to remove intact queen cells as I use plastacell foundation.
Blessings

[little john]

Hi Van - I work much the same as yourself (except I don't use plastic foundation) and with natural cells, give 'em whatever happens to be on the frame.  To the best of my memory, I can't ever recall a colony swarming as the result of there being more than one q/cell present.

But - I saw that advice yesterday, and as it was fresh in my mind, thought I'd chuck it in the pot, so to speak ...
'best
LJ

[Duane]

I noticed this advice just yesterday, while looking for something else:

Only leave one Q/C, whatever the size of the colony. If you leave two, there is a chance the colony will swarm with the first virgin queen to emerge, unless the colony is very small. Don't ever think nuclei or artificially swarmed colonies won't swarm!  http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/queencelluse.html

FWIW - I often insert two ...
LJ

Thanks.  Great.   Rare but happens to me!
I considered mine very small.  But lots of field worker bees from the original.  I wonder if field bees, same boxes, smell, not many combs for them to gather on, all that might have played a role?

[Duane]

The hive with the original queen that you moved, let it be,,, Unless the queen makes more swarm cells.

Yes, that one I'm leaving alone, seems to be doing fine, laying eggs, etc.
But the original location had 2 or more queen cells, one has swarmed sitting in the middle of the yard.  I don't want it there.  And after splitting up things, I don't have a spot ready for another.   I could take it elsewhere, but thinking that I'd liked put it back where they should have stayed. 

I looked at the swarm box a little later, and a few bees flying in and out, but a bunch of buzzing inside.  I'd say they're busy.   The box they came out of, with another queen cell, there's a glob on the front, much like the other boxes, acting like they're hot and not much to do.  If I were to merge them, then would some of they're hanging out "rub off" on the swarm bees and make them not do much?  I liked seeing how fast a swarm made comb last year and wouldn't want that to stop, but if they had more bees, and could inspire them to get busy, that would be better.

[Oldbeavo]

If you want to shift a hive and it is not far then move it 2-3 ft per day or 2 moves  per day till you have it where you want it. You won't lose bees or drift back to old position.
If the bees are in swarm mode and the virgin queen goes out for an orientation fly some time other bees will swarm out with her. Some time you catch small to medium size swarms that don't have eggs laid straight away due to being a young queen.
PS The box that the young queen left may now be in trouble as they wont have eggs to for a new queen.

[moebees]

Could what you have seen have been a mating swarm?

[djgriggs]

Question..

I have read both " to leave the current queen where she is and or move her over to the new split".

Hello everyone.. When making a split big or small,, should you also move the current queen from the box your splitting and put her into the new split.. I have seen many videos as to where they also transfer the queen..

I am asking because I did not do this and wondering if I should have......

[sc-bee]

Now understand, bees sometimes do the unexpected, after a swarm, a virgin daughter hatches and swarms again.  Kind of unusual, but it has happened.  This is called AFTER SWARM and in this particular case, the number of cells, at least two can affect swarming.  Remember after swarms are not the norm.

LJ needs to cross the pond and you need to come visit over here on the Southeast Coast. After swarms with hive left with multiple cells are fairly common. I know a keeper who just had their second swarm out of a hive that was given to them as a swarm. We are leaning toward the Russian lineage....

Have seen several keepers with after swarms this year. It has been a very swarmy year here on the East Coast....

[little john]

LJ needs to cross the pond and you [Van] need to come visit over here on the Southeast Coast. After swarms with hive left with multiple hives are fairly common.

My guess is it's the old, old story of 'local conditions' - I can't remember the last time I had a colony swarm - providing I keep on top of things (meaning: forever pinching frames of brood), they simply never get a chance to ...

But - this year might just be different - we had appalling weather in early spring, followed by a serious heatwave - which stimulated colonies from truly pathetic strengths to 'wall-to-wall capped brood on nearly every frame' in just 18 days.  It's taken me by surprise.  I went around the apiary yesterday looking for open brood with which to prime some queen-rearing hives with nurse bees - and couldn't find any really good ones !  Whereas normally, there's always a few around.  Ok, so I can create these by chequer-boarding empty drawn frames into brood-nests (which I've now done), but overall - unless I get involved in some serious brood-nest management this year, swarming seems very likely.

So - on the strength of one observation from just one apiary in a country which normally has lousy weather - maybe swarming as you describe it is very much a climate-related event ?
LJ

[sc-bee]

LJ needs to cross the pond and you [Van] need to come visit over here on the Southeast Coast. After swarms with hive left with multiple hives are fairly common.

My guess is it's the old, old story of 'local conditions' - I can't remember the last time I had a colony swarm - providing I keep on top of things (meaning: forever pinching frames of brood), they simply never get a chance to ...
So - on the strength of one observation from just one apiary in a country which normally has lousy weather - maybe swarming as you describe it is very much a climate-related event ?
LJ

Splitting them down and opening the brood area over and over has not worked well this year for folks I know on this US East side. It has been very odd indeed this spring. What looked like it was going to be a boom nectar flow has been washed away with pretty much two and half weeks of straight rain not giving anytime for the blooms to build anymore sweet sticky. And or an area that only gets about an 8 week flow for the year it looks pretty much a WASH for the year 

I made one split with about two frames of bees and intentionally left about 5 cells on the bottom of a frame to see what would happen. (I actually split the Russian hive three ways leaving only two cells in each of the other two splits) The part with the five cells threw swarm after swarm leaving a box with about three hundred bees and a queen. It is my first year dealing with Russians. Maybe some of it has to do with the bees???

[Michael Bush]

Every colony makes their own decisions.  The time of year has as much to do with swarming as overcrowding.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm

[texanbelchers]

As to the OPs question, I would find a way to maintain both "new" hives for the short term.  If all goes well, you will have 2 new, mated queens.  If there is a problem, you have a backup readily available.  You could choose to maintain a NUC or just choose a queen and merge back later.

[Duane]

Could what you have seen have been a mating swarm?

The bees must be crazy.

There seemed less on the front of the swarm box than the other boxes, I assuming they are busy inside and not hot.  Well, about the same time today, I noticed a lot of bees in the air, landing in the top of a cedar.   Another swarm was landing on a pear tree.  Lacking any more boxes set up, I thought I'd check the swarm box and nothing there but a few bees robbing out a little nectar deposited.  A little later, I noticed the box they came out of yesterday had a lot of bees over the top and sides with their rears in the air scenting.  Less bees on the pear and cedar and soon none.

Could it be, the queen left to take care of "personal stuff" and a bunch saw she was leaving and said, let's swarm, time to go!  Then they were embarrassed at intruding, or wondered where she went, and went back home (at least for today's instance).  I'm out there with my lemongrass oil and kind of confused things up a bit.  The bees yesterday landed on a box with comb and responding to stimuli went in.  Later they realized they had no queen and went back home.  Which resulted in the bunch of bees on the box I had noticed and seemed like just as much as before because they indeed were the same bunch.  If I had been there later I would not have known anything had happened.

So tell me about mating swarms.  I'm not familiar with how they work.

[Duane]

Question..

I have read both " to leave the current queen where she is and or move her over to the new split".

Hello everyone.. When making a split big or small,, should you also move the current queen from the box your splitting and put her into the new split.. I have seen many videos as to where they also transfer the queen..

I am asking because I did not do this and wondering if I should have......

I think either one works.  What I did in my case was move the queen to a new box and the old box raised several queen cells.  Which was what I wanted.  If you don't want your own queens, you might do it differently.

[Duane]

I made one split with about two frames of bees and intentionally left about 5 cells on the bottom of a frame to see what would happen. (I actually split the Russian hive three ways leaving only two cells in each of the other two splits) The part with the five cells threw swarm after swarm leaving a box with about three hundred bees and a queen. It is my first year dealing with Russians. Maybe some of it has to do with the bees???

So I'm trying to learn from this.  But as Michael Bush says, the colony and time of year affects things, so what I should have done this year may not work next year.  And it may have worked perfectly for this year, I just don't really know at this point.  But looking at it from either probability or worst case, should one only put one queen cell in each box?   And if you have a frame with multiple cells, or don't want / can't have that many boxes, kill the other cells?  Or make sure your biggest split only has one cell?  I just find the idea hard to do, let alone actually squashing a cell or queen.  But I should have done that last fall instead of letting them die through the winter.

[Acebird]

But I should have done that last fall instead of letting them die through the winter.

You can't use cells in the fall unless your area has mating weather and there are still drones available.  About all you can do is combine nurse bees and brood and then split in the spring.