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British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Swarm: What happened?

  • Beginners forum, ask beekeeping related questions and get help from other experienced beekeepers. Please use the Search Feature please to avoid duplicated threads
Beginners forum, ask beekeeping related questions and get help from other experienced beekeepers. Please use the Search Feature please to avoid duplicated threads
 #3940  by Elanman39
 06 Jul 2019, 18:10
Hi, I have just started keeping my own bees after helping a local beekeeper who keeps a couple of hives in my garden for a year. We are both mystified about what has just happened with my hive and I wondered if you guys have any ideas... We inspected it a week or so ago and found that the marked queen had gone and there were no eggs and very little uncapped brood. There were five or six capped queen cells so clearly the queen has gone/died and the hive is re-queening. The number of bees suggests the hive hadn't swarmed but I cannot be certain of that. We selected a frame with two nice looking queen cells on and left that in the hive, destroying the remaining QC's. The plan was then to leave it well alone for a few weeks, assuming that the first/strongest queen would dispose of the other one and and hopefully get everything back on track. Sadly the bees haven't read the same books as we have. Two days after the inspection the hive swarmed. I collected the swarm and it is now housed in a nuc and seems to be doing well, with pollen going in and no sign of the bees wanting to move out again. I haven't checked to see if there is a queen present yet. I did check the main hive and the 2 queen cells are still there and haven't opened. What I don't understand is why they swarmed. I am sure there were no eggs in the brood box when we looked ,s o even if there was a queen present she must have been virgin. Would a hive swarm with a virgin queen? Would they swarm without a queen? Why when she sould have taken out the two queen cells and stayed put? Any ideas?
 #3946  by NigelP
 06 Jul 2019, 21:36
Easy, They swarmed with original queen...bee numbers don't look very different. You left two queen cells.
1st queen cell emerged and they swarmed (caste) again and you are now left with last virgin queen.
 #3950  by MickBBKA
 07 Jul 2019, 00:00
Also don't be fooled into thinking that a queen cell still sealed hasn't emerged. The workers will sometimes repair the tip to look like new. They will also seal a worker bee inside it as well !
Cheers, Mick.
 #3952  by WalnutTreeBees
 07 Jul 2019, 08:19
Unfortunately it does sound like they have swarmed and then issued a cast swarm afterwards.

At this time of year there will be a lot of brood emerging in the space of a week, so that may explain why the box did not seem to have lost bees.

Queens can reduce or stop laying before swarming (the workers will slim them down so that they can fly with the swarm).

Most of the literature states that when superseding a failing queen the bees will produce 2-3 queen cells. So 5 or 6 would definitely indicate swarming.

Once the main swam has left, if the hive is strong (which it sounds like yours was) then it can produce cast swarms which are headed by emerging virgins (or even multiple virgins). 2 or 3 casts is not uncommon.

They wont swam without a queen (although never say never...) At least you have managed to catch the swam that you saw emerging. I might be tempted to take a peek in the nuc after 6pm and see what you've got. Maybe the original queen was late leaving (and hiding from you during your inspection) or maybe you have a virgin in there (who won't be laying yet) and one of the queen cells you left has been re-sealed, or there was a third cell that you missed.
 #3954  by AdamD
 07 Jul 2019, 10:08
Something to look at (next time) is the brood in the hive - whether there were eggs or open or just sealed brood. You can then estimate when the queen stopped laying:-

3 days an egg
6 days as open larvae
12 days as sealed brood

The 3/6/12 pattern is easy to remember and can be very helpful in trying to decide what's been going on.

A mated queen will fly just before the first queencell is sealed - weather permitting. If the weather is poor she might wait a while.
The first virgin out could well fly with a secondary swarm (cast). A third could follow. I only leave one queencell in unless the colony is a nuc, for example, when low bee numbers means that you won't get a swarm.
 #3965  by Elanman39
 07 Jul 2019, 15:52
That's great, thanks for the replies, much appreciated. I have peeked inside the nuc and there are no signs of any eggs or brood and I didn't see a queen, but it's early days yet as you say. I've been feeding them as I had no spare frames of stores when I put them in the nuc and they have plenty of stores now. I've put a super on with undrawn frames (again all I have) to give them some brood space if she does start laying.
I'm pretty sure I captured her as the swarm was low down on a tree and easy to get in the box. Once on the ground bees quickly formed by the entrance fanning with their Nasanov glands held high and the remaining bees quckly gathered and went in the box, so I guess she was in there.
Thanks for the the 3-6-12 tip. I suppose that means if the colony is stable there should be around twice as many larvae as eggs and twice as much capped brood as larvae once shes been laying for at least 21 days?
Thanks once again, Nick
 #3997  by WalnutTreeBees
 08 Jul 2019, 19:03
Sounds like it was a cast headed by a virgin in that case. Best not to inspect them for at least 3 weeks so that she can go out and get mated.
 #4004  by AdamD
 09 Jul 2019, 08:48
I have no concerns about inspecting a colony when a virgin is present - provided it's not when she might be flying, so, on a sunny day and between 10 and 6, at this time of year.