Topic: sealed queen cells today

[alan42]

checked my hive today and found 5 sealed queen cells so my girls are getting ready to swarm, great i only have one hive and want 6 in all so this is my chance to split and get more hives, the saying been a swarm in may is worth a load of hay, a swarm in june is worth a silver spoon, a swarm in july is not worth a fly.
anybody else got sealed cells ?.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Not a chance; I spotted my first drone on April 7th, but my strain overwinters in a vary small cluster, and then builds up fast in May. It's still too small to swarm. You need to split that hive quick; give the old queen one frame of brood, without cells, in the origional position. Split the frames with cells into as many nucs as you want, each with plenty of bees. The flying bees will go back to the old queen, and if the new ones mate, you won't get much honey but you will get new colonies.

[alan42]

thats my problem robert, i got the hive to late last year to take honey from but i didnt have to feed as they had plenty of stores just not enough for me. i want to expand so it looks like i wont get honey again this year and trying to get others to let me have combs that are surpluss is like pulling teeth. unfortunatly i cannot join my local association as there monthly meeting is the same night i am on nights.
oh well onwards and upwards lol
ps i am more north than you near northallerton north yorks.

[Robert_Brenchley]

join the Association anyway; you may not be able to get to meetings, but you can always call someone for advice. I'm wondering why they're swarming; I'm no good at preventing this myself, but you could have an old queen, they could be a swarmy strain, or they could be lacking space, which is a classic cause. maybe a more experienced beekeeper could advise.

Right now, my advice would be to go for increase, since a single hive is never a good option; if anything goes wrong with the queen you've had it. Don't delay; if they have sealed cells they could go at any moment, and you lose the old queen and half your bees. Spend the next year doing some serious reading on swarm control methods.

Dave Cushman has a superb site; there's more information here than anyone would know what to do with! http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/textlinks.html

[Toadspawn]

If you have a spare hive why not follow the artificial swarm technique. You get a new laying queen in a small stock and the parent stock will produce honey.
Alternatively the Snelgrove technique is quite efficient but can be a bit fiddly and timing is important.

[Robert_Brenchley]

My way to do this is to brush (not shake - that can damage queen cells) all the bees off every frame, and remove all but one frame of brood to a new broodbox. Strictly ne cells are left in that broodbox. I then put a queen excluder on top, and the new box with the broodcomb on top of that. Then I leave it overnight.

By morning, the top box will have lots of bees looking after the brood, but obviously no queen. This is moved away and split if that's what I want. The queen remains in the bottom box, which just has enough brood to prevent the bees from decamping. If you're no good at finding queens, or they're runny like some of mine, that way can save quite a bit of time. But you really need to get to it before you have sealed cells.

If you join the Irish List (which is thoroughly international despite the name) at http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/irishbeekeeping/ , there's lots of advice to be found there.

[bombus]

When you went through your Bees did you see any first day eggs at all? normally when you see sealed Queen cells they have swarmed. If you see eggs then you may  still have a Queen, but need to artifitially swarm immediately! or loose your Q and half your workforce. Try   Somersetbeekeepers.org    this is an excellent web site, and has some video clips showing the techniques you need to follow.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Another year, try doing weekly inspections as soon as the numbers start building up, and continue till the end of June. You'll learn a lot about bees, and you'll be able to spot swarm preparations at an early stage. Act as soon as you have eggs in queen cups; don't let anyone tell you to handle it by breaking down cells; it doesn't work. There are various methods, but you need to separate the queen from the brood and con them that they've already swarmed.

[alan42]

went to split into nukes and found a dead queen on the landing board opened up the hive and all the cells had been opened from the side not the end as a hatching queen would normally make. can only guess the bees decided it wasn't time to move and killed the queens as they still have the original Queen and definitely have not swarmed.

[Robert_Brenchley]

You're lucky then; a change in the weather will sometimes do that. The workers open cells from the side to kill the larva, as you doubtless realise. It's still likely to go soon though, so deal with it without delay.