My hive just swarmed, and it happened FAST. Bees were absolutely pouring out of the hive, and by the time I got my camera, there was already less activity.
My hive is now calm, with the exception of several bees crawling on the ground. I can see a cloud of bees at the top of a distant tree, that is roughly 4 stories tall. In other words, the swarm is out of my reach, but also safely away from other people.
I never intended my bees to swarm. I added a 2nd box, prior to Feb 20th. So the 2nd brood box has been on for at least 36 days. But the bees never populated it or built comb. I even fed them 1:1 sugar syrup to encourage comb building, in a top feeder above the 2nd box. So they traveled through the 2nd brood box to get to the sugar water.
I donât really know what else to do right now. There are still bees in my hive, so they didnât abscond. I actually gave them a 2nd 10-day dose of apiguard just yesterday. Iâve also been feeding them a small amount of pollen patty sporadically the last 45 days in the hopes of boosting their population for spring.
Iâm just a little shell-shocked. I first got my bees last year, on April 12th, so it hasnât even been a full year. I also donât want a 2nd hive yet because Iâm still very inexperienced.
Does anyone have any advice? Is there something I should do, or should have done?
I always think of spring as âswarm seasonâ. I would never feed bees during swarm season, on account that extra feed on top of what they forage will only increase the colonyâs urge to swarm.
In preference to adding a second brood box, I would always do a preemptive swarm control split. That is to do a split before the colony starts preparing to swarm, which will be before any queen cells get started with eggs or larvae.
Iâm never concerned about the possibility of doing it too soon during spring on account of the long season ahead for the colonies to rebuild in.
During the swarm season, I use the honey supers as a guide. I never let the honey supers get any more than 2/3 - 3/4 full of bees. Any more than that is my trigger to do the preemptive swarm control splits.
Having said that, there will always be exceptions to the rule.
@JeffH is right on target. Splits are the key to swarm prevention at this time of year in the Northern hemisphere.
Later in the season (mid to late spring), if you have a new hive colony, you might want a second deep brood box, or a medium box, depending on what you have already.
Most hobby beekeepers that I know in SoCal use double deeps, one deep and one medium, or 3 mediums. However, that is mostly for food storage during our long nectar dearths. This year should be a bumper crop after all of the rain we have had from atmospheric rivers. I think that the bees know that too, and they are swarming early!
Is there anything I should do to my current hive after it swarmed?
Also, should I worry about my current hive creating a new queen? Or does a hive only swarm when there are queen cells present, and therefore, my hive must therefore already have them?
Because I just started the 2nd dose of Apiguard yesterday, I was thinking it would be best to not open the hive. And also, because of the recent swarming, to possibly let them re-adjust for a while.
Too bad about the high location the primary swarm chose to settle on! Canât be helped. This spot is whatâs called a bivouac - a place to rest while they make their final decision on a new home.
Precisely. You might even see another or several more swarms, called âcast swarmsâ, meaning âcast offâ. The first, or primary swarm that you witnessed consisted of about 50% of your worker population plus the original queen. Cast swarms are of queens emerging from swarm cells plus their own smaller contingents of workers. A new queen may already have emerged and is now busy stinging the others to death before they come out - a more favorable situation for you!
Go in and have a look tomorrow if you can, and post some pics so we can help. If you havenât already done so, take away the second box and the feed, including pollen.
Hi Mike, in doing splits, I make sure that worker eggs are present in the frames of brood that I take. That way, the bees can make emergency queens, which is my preference. I take the split far enough away so that no bees return to the parent hive. This is to keep the brood warm, as well as a hive beetle strategy because I want as many bees as possible to prevent them from laying eggs in the brood. On top of that, we partly defeat the purpose of the split by allowing bees to return to the parent hive.
Most times in my area, the urge to swarm is so strong that I feel the need to split the splits after queen cells have developed so as to avoid the split from issuing a swarm with the first virgin queen to emerge, based on past experience.
Having said all that, it just occurred to me that on account of Africanized bees in your area, emergency queens might not be the best idea, as @Dawn_SD would suggest.
Iâm not sure if the weather will allow me to open the hive tomorrow. The high will be 58 degrees F (is that too cold?). Itâs also going to rain all morning, with a slight chance of light rain in the afternoon. Winds between 5 and 10 mph.
(Earlier when the bees swarmed today it was perfect out, 70 degrees and sunny!)
Wait for the rain to pass. Here in San Diego, it wonât be good for an inspection until Friday.
That is a very good question, with a very long answer. Please allow me to point you to a very good article. It is long, but so is the answer to your question. If you are able to take the time to read it (several times over - I get more out of it with each re-reading!), I think that you will find that you understand a lot more:
Many suggestion - One being Demaree method is something I have done in past. However drawn comb in beekeeping is considered priceless, I find that it certainly give the colony ability to expand quicker. With Damaree I donât go and knock the queencells I then make a split with that colony. utilising the queen cells.
Weekly inspection during swarming period, and splits when needed.
Walkaway Split - Splitting the colony when it is packed allows the colony to re-build again sometimes the queen does a good job that you have to do it again.
Snelgrove Method
Artificial swarm control - find the queen place in new hive with 2 frames of brood one that is emerging so that she has room to lay, give the colony foundation to draw out new comb, this will give the colony space to expand. The old hive place is new location, all the flying bees will come to the old location into the new hive, you have tricked them to swarm leaving the other colony with house bees and brood, they will rear a new queen.
Update:
I have 3 capped queen cells, 1 empty queen cup, and 1 queen cup that is filled with a white milky substance, that I assume is royal jelly. These things were scattered across the 4 middle frames.
I also saw some uncapped worker brood on the frames.
@Dawn_SD From the article, it sounds like I should either:
Keep one healthy-looking queen cell, and destroy the others
-OR-
The article talked about releasing several queens at similar maturity stages at the same time, and letting the bees choose their queen. (If I did this route, I would peel off the cap of the cell holding the 3 capped queens simultaneously about 7-8 days after the swarm date, and destroy any others that are behind in development.)
It sounds like both routes demand that I destroy the queen that is uncapped, because she is behind the other 3 in development, and she may surely cause a cast swarm. But what action concerning the other 3 capped queens do you recommend? Is it 100% not advisable to do nothing to the 3 capped queens and let nature run its course?
Photos: I did my best to show detail, but my camera doesnât do well close up. Also, the two queen cup photos look similar, but they are on different frames, and only one was full.
If you read the wbka booklet, that is exactly what they say! It is even written in a rather amusing fashion (for British writing, at least!). They comment that it seems to have a very high success rate in preventing swarms. I havenât needed to do it myself, but I would if I was in that situation. They are very highly regarded beekeepers and value their reputation, so they wouldnât recommend something that never works.
I did option 2 once, and I didnât love it - one of the queens I released seemed undercooked, and âwasnât chosenâ. Still far better than just destroying all queen cells as some beeks have advised though. And definitely better than letting nature take its course, you could end up with a very weak or queenless colony.
@Salem thanks for the pics, those frames are piled with bees! They have the look of imminent swarm to me. Iâd choose option 2 but if you wanted youâd have a successful split with one of those mature QCs as well.
Not so good. I attempted option #2. But the 1st and 2nd queen cell that I opened, the queen inside was severely undercooked - sort of an under-formed all-white bee larva. It didnât even look like a queen yet. I expected the next cell I opened would contain a mature queen, but it was the same result.
I think I was too early, but the WBKA article stated: If âthe swarm occurred 3-4 days ago then, under normal circumstances, the queen cells are about 4 days from emergence.â Today is the 7th day after my swarm.
So I ended up unfortunately falling back to option #1. I left 1 capped queen cell untouched, that seemed large and well protected⌠it was one that was already present and capped last Friday.
There were also two new uncapped queen cells, which I also removed.
Itâs very difficult knowing what to do when Iâm in the hive, and must make a decision. Also, opening those queen cells is very difficult. I had a toothpick, two small knifes, and a pair of manicure scissors, but itâs hard to cut through the wax capping, without smashing the wax cell inwards.
Definitely difficultâŚStaring and staring into a hive wondering what I should do is definitely a familiar experience. But I think you did well, reading & preparing and then going for it
