Hey there.
I did an inspection the other day and found many queen cells (probably about ten over two frames). I take it they are preparing to swarm. I have a second hive and want to do a split to hopefully prevent them from swarming, but I’m not sure how to go about it.
I have trouble finding the queen, so I’m not sure what to do. My idea is to move the frames with the queen cells into the new hive. As well as a few more frames with some honey and brood. The only trouble I see with that is what if I end up moving the queen over to the new hive as well.
Any quick advice much appreciated. I want to do it today. You around @JeffH ?
I had an almost identical situation myself this morning. I removed all the brood. I replaced them with a frame containing young larvae & eggs from a different colony, in the middle flanked by 8 fully drawn stickies. I made 2 nucs with 4 of the frames, with bees, after tearing the queen cells down. I couldn’t see any young brood at all, so I added young brood to each split from a different hive.
I couldn’t see the queen in on any of the 4 frames of brood & bees, I want them to produce emergency queens, rather than use the swarm cells. I used the single frame with young brood in the parent hive, just in case the queen wasn’t there.
It’s full-on here. Mornings before breakfast. & late afternoons. This morning was my first sighting of actual queen cells. With 65 hives to worry about, and now winter days in low 30s, I just have to keep at it.
Hey Jeff. Just wondering if my strategy is sound. I rarely can find the queen, so I’m not sure of the implications if she ends up going to the new split.
The implications of the queen going with the new split will be the possibility of the colony not being able to raise a new one if there isn’t any young worker brood or eggs in the remaining frames. I think, take a look in a few days time for new eggs