eeek - Queen Cells

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Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Fri May 09, 08 6:00 pm Post subject:

jocorless wrote:

TAVASCAROW wrote:

Bit late but this is what I would have done.
Taken the frames with the queen cells after brushing the bees off & place in a separate brood box along with any frames with eggs & young brood also minus bees & a couple of frames of pollen/honey.
Replace the frames in the original brood (With all the bees) with empty comb or foundation.
Put a queen excluder over the original brood & place the new brood box on top.
The young nurse bees will move up to tend the brood & the new queens when they emerge.
Next day move the top box to a new site & leave the old queen with all the foraging bees on the old site.
If the new queens haven't emerged you could subdivide into two or three nucs but you will need to feed them as all the foragers are still with the old queen.
This way the main gathering force is still on the old site & should be able to pull a crop if the weather permits & you have 1,2 or 3 new nucs that you can feed up & increase for next year.
If you haven't read it I thoroughly recommend Snelgrove's 'Swarming its control & prevention'.
Its the most important book in my beekeeping library.

I wanted to use a Snelgrove board this year but the situation overtook me - I really didn't expect to be having to deal with a potential swarm this early in May - Especially in Lancashire

As I would not be around today and tomorrow - I needed a solution that wouldn't need any intervention over the next couple of days - It seems to have worked - Time will tell

You don't need a snelgrove board with the above method.
What you did was basically right but if you had left the old queen on the original site all the mature flying bees would stay & return there.
Doing it the other way around as you have done has left the mature foragers with the queen cells so you may still get a swarm as soon as the new queen emerges.
Doing it my way round means you have all the nurse bees with the brood & queen cells,
& all the mature flying bees with the old queen minus brood. (An artificial swarm).

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Fri May 09, 08 10:07 pm Post subject:

True and that is what Linda and Richard said to do today BUT my bee's were on a double brood chamber and I didn't have enough confidence to remove the brood and leave the Queen behind - I was very nervous about them swarming whilst I wasn't at home - so I wanted to make sure that they wouldn't go until Linda and Richard had been down to have a look at them and help me sort things out

To be honest - what we might do on Tuesday is swap the brood chambers around and put the original queen back in place and have the queen cells on the new stand -that will then place the flying bees with the old Queen and effectively we've done the same as you suggested but with an intermediate step - I've got plenty of brood frames that I can make up for them to draw out

Plus with this beekeeping lark - I've found once you've got one way of doing something - you suddenly find another 10 ways of doing it - Richard's favourite saying is the one about putting 4 beekeepers in a room and ask 'em a question and you'll probably get 6 or 7 answers and one will be a totally unique way of doing something that nobody else has ever heard of - Its like Unix with bee's!

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35057
Location: Devon

Posted: Tue May 13, 08 9:05 pm Post subject:
Did this all go smoothly Jo? Have the bees settled down? I had a good evening session up at the apiary learning more about swarms tonight, and there was a hare lolloping around - he went right past the door as we were having our talk, and sat there watching us peering at the glass topped hives. Very cool.

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Tue May 13, 08 9:27 pm Post subject:

Jamanda wrote:

Did this all go smoothly Jo? Have the bees settled down?

Sort of

We went into the main colony only this time - leaving Brigid alone - Her girls are now allowed to fly and although there are only a few flying at the moment - they are bringing in pollen - I'll have a proper look at her tomorrow

As for Athena - We went in and found they had made even more queen cells! - Having decided which ones we thought were good candidates we destroyed the rest (about 20 again!) and had a look at some of the pupae - the older Queen cells were at the pink eye stage - The one we choose however was a nice big recently sealed one in the perfect position and beautifully drawn out

Queen Bee Development wrote:

The egg laid on day one, egg hatches into larva on day 3/4. 2mm (slightly bent) day 4. 'C' shape larva day on 5. Day 7 is oldest larva to be able to be made into a queen. Cell sealed on day 8.
Day 9/10 pre-pupa. Day 11 Pupa. Red eye stage is day 12. Yellow thorax day 13. Yellow abdomen day 14. Pupal moult day 15. Emergent queen on day 16. Pupae are very delicate and are loose in the queen cell from day 11/13 and should not be moved at this stage. The queen flys and mates providing the air temperature is above 16C.

They originally were only going to take 1 brood frame with cells on it but there was so many nice ones that they decided to take 2 - both had cells that could only have been sealed within the last day or so as they were surrounded by unsealed brood

We then sorted out the brood box and looked at the small amount of sealed brood that had been laid in the first super - some of it was starting to emerge so that is good, they should be out of there very soon - especially as they were starting to cap off the honey in there and needed a second super putting on

I've now got to check them Tomorrow just to make that they haven't made any more queen cells from the unsealed larvae - They need to be destroyed as they wouldn't make very good queens, also it helps prevent a cast swarm - They won't let the new Queen swarm if she is the only one they have got - this has to be done very carefully in case she has already emerged

Artemis has been taken down to my Dad's and is currently being fed down there - she should be emerging on Thursday/Friday and begin her mating flights this weekend - Apart from feeding her - I'll leave her alone - Unfortunately we've discovered that my Dad's friend who does his garden for him is very allergic to bee's having been hospitalised in Germany with a sting - so I can't have my Out Apiary there permanently - Dad really needs his help - so I'm on the look out for somewhere else - It's likely that she will go to Spicy Cauldron's partner as he will be wanting bee's very soon and I'll have to put my expansion plans on hold for a while until I get something sorted

Last edited by joanne on Tue May 13, 08 9:37 pm; edited 1 time in total

Citrine

Joined: 30 Apr 2008
Posts: 51
Location: Kent

Posted: Tue May 13, 08 9:29 pm Post subject:
...if I were closer, I'd help you out, and take a Queen off of your hands

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Tue May 13, 08 9:29 pm Post subject:

We went over to the hives again today, supposedly to just pop another super on the big hive. And we went in to the brood chamber to swap a frame that had fallen apart on Saturday ... which now contained FIVE queen cells.

We think we got the queen in to the nuc box (couldn't see her in the hive and a huge pile of bees in the corner of the nuc box fanning)l left the semi-collapsed frame with the Q-cells in situ; and we copied Jo's procedure exactly. When I left them they were standing around the nuc box entrance fanning madly - so fingers crossed.

I now need to spend the next couple of days blow-torching lifts in the hope that they stay put!

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Wed May 14, 08 8:46 am Post subject:

Good luck Chez! - Its exciting this beekeeping malarky isn't it - Are you going to go in again in a few days to see how many more queen cells them have made - if they are anything like mine - there will be loads and loads and loads

I've got to go in later to both colonies and see how it's going - I suspect Brigid may need some more foundation putting in and hopefully Athena will have not made any emergency cells - I can then leave her alone apart from changing supers

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Wed May 14, 08 8:57 am Post subject:
If the stars align, we are planning to go over again on Sunday - Arvo's away until then and I just can't lift supers myself - knackered my pelvis again yesterday, despite the truss . I can still get in to the bee suit, though . Planning on getting everything ready whilst he's away.

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Wed May 14, 08 11:37 am Post subject:

I've just been in and taken a look - I'm not sure that Dinner Hours include Beekeeping as part of the approved activities even if you are working from home!

Linda's suspicion that they would try and make more Queen cells out of the the unsealed larvae were correct - After making sure I knew which one (the frame was marked) was the Queen cell we were keeping, I had to destroy another 10 or so! that they had made from 7 day old larvae - There was also 3 or 4 unsealed larvae left so I took the precaution of destroying them as well so they couldn't try it again - Everything else is now sealed, they have plenty of room and I can leave well alone until she has been mated and is laying (hopefully)

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed May 14, 08 5:17 pm Post subject:
Lucky you that she is laying. I have been waiting for 3 weeks, to see if I had an unmated virgin queen, but by the looks of it, not. I have no brood or eggs laid. On Fri I am helping a friend with her bees, and if they handle well AND if she has queen cells then I am going to ask for some. Oh what a palava.

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35057
Location: Devon

Posted: Thu May 15, 08 4:22 pm Post subject:
I've got a bee hive! Now I just need some bees

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Thu May 15, 08 7:10 pm Post subject:

Jamanda wrote:

I've got a bee hive!

Now I just need some bees

Wahay - go Mandy! are you getting a Nuc or do you have to wait for a swarm?

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35057
Location: Devon

Posted: Thu May 15, 08 7:23 pm Post subject:

jocorless wrote:

Jamanda wrote:

I've got a bee hive!

Now I just need some bees

Wahay - go Mandy! are you getting a Nuc or do you have to wait for a swarm?

A Nuc I hope. They seem to be quite optimistic up at the apiary.

I got a basic cedar wood national, with a gauze floor, a door block, a queen excluder and frames and foundation for the brood box and the super. I also got a smoker and a J shaped hive tool, nails for the frames and wedges. I will encourage Sean to make me a dummy board and a quilt from a tea towel. The only other thing I think I might need straight off is a frame feeder.

Anything I've forgotten?

Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Fri May 16, 08 6:45 am Post subject:
we like a glass quilt instead of a wooden crown board. You can peer in to get a sense of what's happening in there without having to lift the board up - perhaps if the weather's not perfect.

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Fri May 16, 08 7:49 am Post subject:

Jamanda wrote:

jocorless wrote:

Jamanda wrote:

I've got a bee hive!

Now I just need some bees

Wahay - go Mandy! are you getting a Nuc or do you have to wait for a swarm?

Why are you using a frame feeder ? I just use a rapid feeder that sits on top of the crown board - Much much easier for a beginner to use especially if you have a crown board with one hole in it or if with 2 holes you block one up so you can refill it at dusk without having to suit up - handy if you are doing that every couple of days

As for dummy boards - I would get Sean to make up at least 4 - more if possible - they are so handy - I'm going to ask Martin to make me some more now I'm up to 2 hives 4 just isn't enough

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