Hi skeggley,
Here is the video of one of my virgin queens I filmed the other day. What do you think of the colour?
https://youtu.be/tbCXYLNfbfs
1 Like
Thanks Dan, I couldn’t really make out the colour but interesting to see especially its interactions with the other bees.
I measured 2 different excluders, plastic and steel, I found the steel 0.2mm wider exclusions than the plastic one at 4.3mm. Yep just a bees dick. 
1 Like
@skeggley Sorry you couldn’t pick up the colour - the quality of the footage seems to deteriorate when I put it on youtube. I wonder if you can have a small queen with a smaller thorax? 
I thought the plastic one looked smaller.
@Dan2 I agree with Skegs.
@Dawn_SD has been “Where’s Wally, sorry Queeny Champion” 
for the last 3 years. If you have a queen in the picture DD will find her.
1 Like
How long prior to swarming does a Queen stop laying? Day/s before or including day of leaving?
Hi Kirsten,
I discovered recently to my chagrin, that a swarm can issue with a virgin queen from a hive with no mated queen. In other words, if the hive is strong enough, they will swarm even if there is no “old” laying queen in the hive at all.
I have read that where a hive swarms with the old mated queen, that yes, she does stop laying and slim down to enable her to take flight, but I reckon there is a widish time frame - but I could be wrong there too.
@JeffH
Jeff (and others following this), as you know I divided the split that was not making new queen cells. I did it early this morning and placed the hives side by side in the original position. By late today I was disappointed to see many more bees at the entrance of and flying into one box, and a tap on the sides of both boxes indicated very few bees in one as compared to the other. I just had to open them up to see what was going on - fearing they might be making queen cells in the low numbers box. Inspection of the low numbers box revealed those bees barely covered the frame of brood and had started no queen cells at all. The second box, with many more bees, had already started (decent size already) on at least 4 queen cells at the bottom of its frame of brood - so it looks like early signs of success.
1 Like
I have been following your tale @Dan2, very interesting, if not frustrating for you. I just can’t seem to find much clear information as to when the Queen might stop prior to swarming, maybe I’m looking in the wrong places?
1 Like
Hi Dan, all you need to do now is move the strongest split a few meters away. Then put the weaker split in the location of where the stronger split was. However, before doing that, the unmated queen could be in the weaker split that isn’t making queen cells.
It’s probably good that that happened. I feel guilty that I didn’t explain what to do & what to avoid. However now that you’ve seen what happens, it will make more sense now. What I do is move the hives apart, about a foot & watch closely to which split the bees are returning to. If the bees favor one above the other, I’ll move that one further away.
It all comes down to which split has the most amount of bees fanning their scent towards the returning bees. As you can see by that alone, how that one split will attract the majority of the bees, leaving the other split with just the nurse bees.
Now after checking for the queen in the split that isn’t making queen cells, then moving it into the position of the stronger split after moving it a few meters away, only leave it there long enough for the populations to equalize. Once that has happened you can either close it up & take it a few k’s away or leave it closed for 3 days, then use the branch in front of the opening trick.
It IS tricky doing a side by side split, it’s difficult to get it right. I’m constantly facing this issue. I normally finish up taking one of the splits away.
Having said all of that, monitoring the population is paramount, an important part of doing the split.
1 Like
@Dan2, Hi Dan, you read about the donated flow hive that I got, the bartered split & the trap-out, also the tiny swarm.
Ok, the tiny swarm is fine now because I swapped it’s position with the first split that I brought home from the trap-out. That split only has one frame of brood with queen cells. It can afford to lose some bees.
Yesterday I went to the trap-out to see if bees are still exiting, & they are. I only had a 4 frame nuc box with 4 empty frames with me. I swapped 3 empty frames for 3 frames containing bees, no brood.
I wanted open brood for those 3 frames, so I went to my bee site & found a frame of open brood in the donated flow brood box, which previously only had a virgin queen because that hive had swarmed. Then I went to check on the bartered split. That lid was full of bees, the virgin queens hadn’t emerged yet.
I placed the frame of open brood over the mass of bees in the lid, then removed the lid of the nuc hive, which was also full of bees. So I gently placed that lid over the other side of the open brood. All of the bees in the lids clambered onto the brood. Then I placed that brood into a different empty box, then added the rest of the bees from the nuc box. I shook the rest of the bees in, filled it with empty frames, closed it up & came home.
1 Like
Thanks @JeffH for your assistance.
I was up at the crack of dawn to do the bees as I have a busy time ahead, and actually searched for the queen and other stuff before I read your suggestions. Yeah - I know it was too cold.
I did the excluder thing in reverse this time - putting brood in a box above. Because there were not too many bees in the split I, was able to confidently check frame by frame as well. In the end, I can report there was no queen in the box that wasn’t making queen cells - so I am totally confused, but at least queen cells are underway in the other box. I put the brood frame back in the donor hive. I’m sorry I couldn’t find the queen because I wanted to put her in the freezer thanks @Dawn_SD 
I shook all the bees in front of the strong queen rearing split so they can help out in the hive making the queen cells, and that hive appears to have settled fine.
A bit mysterious, but hopefully the merged hive keeps the old laying queen and the split making the queen cells ends up with a laying queen. I might choose the two biggest queen cells and get rid of the others or I might just leave them. Given there has been no laying queen for nearly a month and a half in that hive, numbers are now steadily declining and another virgin queen swarm would surely be implausible.
2 Likes
Hi Dan, just a little update on my story.
As it turned out, most of the bees in that split that I moved must have done orientation flights. Consequently, most of the bees went back to the tiny swarm, which was good for the tiny swarm. However it left that split very low on bees.
The frame of sealed brood that I had in the weak colony had bees emerging at a steady rate by then, so what I did was put that frame into the split so that the emerging bees would boost the numbers. The next mornings inspection revealed a much healthier looking colony with the addition of all of the bees that emerged overnight. It will only improve as more bees emerge. Also it has a nice looking recently emerged virgin queen.
I found yesterday that the queen in the original tiny swarm is laying nicely.
Terrific news about the swarm queen…upwards and onwards from here. I am getting plenty of experience over the last couple of years watching queenless hives gradually decline. I can’t see any Braula fly on any bees this year but not sure if they are on the queens (they like queens as they are the longest lived of the bees in the hive).
I’ll try and get a photo of those emergency queen cells in my split shortly and post it. Queen cells can get chalkbrood too apparently.
Hi Dan, thanks mate. I’m not trying to show off or anything. It could be interpreted that way. I’m showing how that manipulation of frames can lead to a positive outcome, sooner or later. I DID persevere, as previously mentioned, with one colony for 4 months before things came good.
I’m here to help, either by illustration or to make suggestions as to what I would do if faced with a similar situation. 90% of the time, I have already faced that situation. The other 10% being for varoa. Look, I didn’t even spell it right.
2 Likes
Looks Wilma has stepped in here and put the reins on you, @JeffH! 
Just kidding, I know you did that yourself. 
1 Like