New Queen cells galore in the Flow Hive 5 days after making a split and moving all of the previous queen cells into a nuc box. Did I roll a queen? She’s not in the nuc. Do they still want to swarm even after moving 3 frames out and shaking bees?
I’ve included my other hive’s awesome brood pattern and deep frames of honey. Great queen to be sure.
I’ll check for fresh eggs/the queen in the Flow tomorrow afternoon just to be sure.
Anything else I can do? (I have another empty nuc…)
Mine did. I made a split just like you did and added another brood frame one week later - and STILL they swarmed.
Funny how they have a mind to do something and as much as we may can not change the plan they lay out. All we can do is work our plan and hope in the end that it all works out.
These do look more like supercedure cells rather than swarm cells though…
Bobby you need to look at your options, decide what o do and stick with it.
I delayed my girls by 4 weeks while I had to work away - wan’t sure how long it would delay them for but my strategy worked.
Took 2 frames full of brood off each hive - tried to make sure there were eggs and day old larvae and put them with bees that were on the frame in a nuc.
One made 5 QC’s and another frame only 1, Unfortunately only 2 were finally viable - one may have been killed in the battle of the princesses - but have to wait 2-3 weeks before I actually know the outcome.
The Flow box on 8 frames I have checkerboarded and so are on double brood. not so with the 10 frame lang - charged Queen Cup so did a shook swarm of sorts - found the queen put her with some bees to look after her and locked her away for a day - mating nuc was perfect size for this - left the bees in the original box.
Next day took off charged QC and 1/2 the frames put into new hive with the flow frames and lots of bees into a wooden lang.
Put Sapphire and her entourage back into her original hive with 1/2 fresh foundation - not a typical shook swarm but same principal - all are doing well.
Will need to check there are no more QC’s before I go back to work on Thursday. Unfortunately I’m working further afield and may not get back as often as I wish. New job for 2 weeks as a favour - so watch this space so to speak
Both hives have food stores, bees and everyone is happy
I think they are swarm cells. Supersedure cells, for a start, are all the same age.
Swarm cells can be anywhere. If you looked in five days ago and you have a capped QC then you just missed it last time you looked in. If they have swarmed (no queen or eggs) then you need to reduce to one and let them get on with it. If she is still there, put her into a two frame nuc (one frame stores and one frame of emerging brood) and drawn comb if you have it plus a really good four frames worth of shaken nurse bees. Then reduce your cells to one…pick an open one with a larva and plenty of royal jelly.
Good luck
Another very nice video, Bobby!
(What camera are you using?)
Nikon L840. It does a fairly good job.
Indeed, it does! 
Thanks for the info.
Depending on the strength of the hive, and the desires of the bees, some hives will swarm 3-5 times before they stop, so I would say it is still very possible they want to swarm again.
What sort of bees are they, Bobby? I would be changing the queen to one from a less swarmy race
Diving into them later this afternoon to do a proper egg/queen search.
My brood looked quite backfilled with honey/nectar as well don’t you think?
I agree @Dee, I had to have missed those now-capped cells.
If I find the queen, she’ll be moved into a new 10-frame hive along with 5 frames of her offspring (sans queen cells) and the parent colony will get 5 new frames to work with and left with 2-3 queen cells. The remainder will be destroyed.
If the queen isn’t found and there are no eggs, I will still move a portion of the colony into a new hive along with a couple queen cells. I may as well take advantage of the situation as best I can given I have the equipment.
I still have an additional nuc box I could use too but the bee space around the endbars is non-existent. I’ll set that up as a swarm trap as insurance.
I will also triple check the nuc I did the original split into a week ago for the queen/eggs. They’d drawn several queen cells though so I highly doubt she’s in there.
Oddly, (as of this AM) they have yet to swarm. With the abundance of queen cells and some perhaps being capped for 6 days now, today/tomorrow are prime swarm days if it is going to happen.
Anything wrong with my plans? I am all ears.