Managing the hives.

[TenshiB]

Huh! I've got to get out into my woods a lot more because I can't keep my darned package bees in their 10 frame mediums before they start swarming! Got them in mid April (19th?) and they've drawn about 13 frames fully before they decided they've completed their colonial duties and it's time to start up anew somewhere's out of their man-made confines! Found 1 queenless yesterday.. no eggs, no brood, but they were just as happy-acting and quiet as can be..
All-in-all we found three hives with no queens yesterday and this is where it gets weird:  1) was the above mentioned package colony (two 10 frame mediums) queenless  2)is a Jennifer Berry nuc (10 frame deep, two 10 frame mediums) suspected queenless--lots of Q cells and loud bees  3)is a shook swarm that was doing spectacularly (four 10 frame mediums)

The shook swarm had no feed during the flow and has drawn out on plastic foundation at an amazing rate.
The package colony and Berry nuc have both been on feed the whole time to build them up but we've since taken them off of feed since they wanna act like dummies.

This comes down to mis-management. Any tips or hints? Should be ALREADY be robbing brood here and there from some of these hives and giving to weaker ones? I'm sure gonna miss those queens. Especially that beauty (we named her Isis) from the shook swarm!

[Vance G]

I just induced two fine splits to swarm by leaving them in too small quarters just too long.  Medium boxes allow so little room for error when bees suddenly start emerging literally by the thousands every day.  Sadly I imagine the decision was made prior to you putting on the second box.   My experimenting with mediums for brood nests is about to come to an end.  I am just not a good enough manager I guess.