You’re right Jeff, I did put a feeder in with the new swarm. I’m going in there right now because the fighting has intensified 3 fold today. I’m going to reduce the entrance to the smallest size and see what’s going on possibly remove the feeder.
You were completely correct. It seems that when I reduced the entrance to the smallest size and removed the in hive frame feeder which was only 1/3 remaining (down from full), the battles on the landing board have stopped. I did see some drones getting tossed out of the hive but that’s perfectly normal.
Now they are coming and going at a more normal pace with lots of pollen coming into the hive today since it’s 70 degrees, windless, and sunny outside. Thanks so much for that recommendation.
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Hi Kev, & you’re welcome. I would remove any other feeders. Let the bees forage naturally, then hopefully the desire to swarm will pass.
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UPDATE: “This is Getting Totally Repetitive”
Yet… Another… Swarm… This time from the windblown hive which landed in the maple tree directly next to our back door. I literally walked outside into a cloud of bees that were in the final stages of making the football size cluster on a 4 inch branch about 15 feet up in the air.
I quickly ran to each hive (we have 4 now apparently) and deduced from entrance activity that it was the windblown hive. I opened up the windblown hive later on and found 1/2 the bees missing, no eggs, no larva, only a minuscule amount of capped brood, 3 uncapped swarm cells and 6 capped swarm cells all at the bottom of 3 frames (one frame had 1, one had 2, and one had 3, all capped). But there was no brood of any kind in the hive. Is this an after swarm? from the first swarm that I missed from this hive? Honestly at this point I have no clue. All I know is that the only things in that hive now are capped queen cells, bees, and honey; there is no more brood left to speak of.
Getting this swarm was 3 times harder than capturing the first two:
We have a 22 foot ladder so this part wasn’t so bad
But what happened next is that I think I missed the queen OR she flew back up to the tree because they did not want to go into the first box… OR the second box… and finally I had three sets of bees, in three separate boxes before they gave up on the tree and didn’t want to go back there anymore.
They finally picked a box and all went in there and I moved the others away. Then I went looking for a frame of brood in what I’m generously calling “The Completely Dysfunctional Apiary”
Problem is, none of these hives are right with the world. Only 1 has a laying queen so the best I could steel was a 1/3 drawn out set of eggs from her hive and I regretted it after doing it because this has just gotten way out of hand.
On that note… Is it a problem to have bought two Nucs and BOTH were already going to swarm no matter what I did. And now both have cast off two sets of bees. We hived he two original Nucs exactly 32 days ago. So I have very very little infrastructure split between 5 separate hives right now when my intension was simply to have 2 strong hives for the year, not 5 feeble hives. Feel free to tell me to stop complaining.
This part was wild: If you’ve read this far… I popped open the lid to drop the frame of eggs and partially drawn comb in and they were almost all clustered on the two frames that were already inside the box (blank foundation) but a small cluster was on the roof. That cluster accidentally fell off onto the second top I had laying in the grass. Then as it was dispersing and reorienting I saw a bee whose abdomen absolutely protruded down past the wings, there’s no doubt in my mind it was a slender lady with a long long abdomen, very light in color and almost looked pristine and brand new. Then as I tried to get her onto my glove to place her by the entrance she flew off. I was devastated. 2 hours of work and she just flew off. I stared at the entrance, stared and stared… and after about 45 seconds… she landed right next to the tiny door and walked inside.
I don’t know how to tell the difference between a slimmed down mated queen and a virgin… does anyone know? Is there a difference? My gut told me she was a virgin. Possibly one of a couple because it was hard to get the bees to pick one box to be in, they seemed drawn to different boxes when they got split up, AND there were 3 uncapped queen cells inside the windblown hive from which this swarm originated.
So that’s my story. I was really hoping I had closed out this saga and was going to move on to trying to build up 4 hives. So here’s me moving on to attempt to build up 5. Gotta buy more woodenware.
-Kevin
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You can evaluate which ones are the strongest going into the fall and winter and combine the weaker colonies (keep the better performing queen).
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This morning (50 degrees, coldest day of June so far) I was looking at the hives and since there’s a screen inner cover and a screen bottom board on the windblown hive (the hive that swarmed yesterday) I could just hear a faint sound. I would describe it as a turbine (or tiny engine) running over and over… tone, tone, tone, tone, tone, tone, tone, tone, tone, tone… then nothing.
I tried to record it but the bird song we have which is deafening blotted it out on my iPhone recording. I put my head next to the box and waited and then it was there again, same sound same duration. Yesterday I saw during the post swarm inspection 6 capped swarm cells at the bottom of 3 separate frames, so I’m assuming that sound is being made by the virgin queens from what I just read online, but I can’t possibly tell if it’s the sound they’re making to make the workers let them out OR the sound one of them is making to alert the others she’s coming to kill them. It’s still 50 degrees outside (the low last night was 46, unseasonably cold) and the bees couldn’t possibly fly today since 55 will be the absolute high temp if that (same for tomorrow because of this cold front).
Hi Kev, this has been a great learning experience for you, to say the least. That sound probably was from the virgin queens. A great way to find out would be to watch my favorite bee video on Youtube “City of Bees”. It’s a video that must be watched a few times, in order to take everything in (not the religious part, unless you’re that way inclined).
I followed this thread, & I figured that after your first swarm event, you would have known how to prevent the wind blown hive from swarming, based on my advice. There’s a lot to learn & Rome wasn’t built in a day.
What I do to prevent swarming is preemptive swarm control splits, which works in the vast majority of cases. Even with the splits, I sometimes have to split in order to prevent them from swarming. All this comes from learning from experience, the same way you are learning.
Definitely watch that video, plus “Nova, Tales from a Hive”, which is much longer, however shows some incredible close-up footage.
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You’re absolutely right. And thanks for that YouTube recommendation.
I think I’ve been overwhelmed by the series of events with these two Nucs but I’m very grateful for the learning experience. Whatever happens now I’ll look back on this year as trial by fire beekeepers addition.
The swarm in the new box from yesterday just started doing orientation flights since it actually got up to just under 60 degrees and the sun in shining for the last 3 hours of daylight today.
After I see how all these 5 hives go I’m definitely going to end up consolidating to the strongest before winter comes. I can’t imagine them all being winter ready by the fall. On the plus side, the brood break they’re all taking is good for varroa.
Hi Kev, I’m guessing that you still have a long time before winter, for the bees to buildup in. People do successfully over winter nucleus colonies. I think it’s just a matter of insulation, coupled with enough food to lie them over. You’ll see in that video how the bees consume honey to regulate temperature. My theory is: the better insulated a hive is, the less honey they’ll need to consume in order to regulate the temp.
The “feeble hives” is the bees own doing. They must have felt confident about rebuilding before winter sets in, otherwise they wouldn’t have swarmed like they did.
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Hey Jeff,
I have a specific question from my observations today if you don’t mind. The piping or quacking sound coming from the windblown hive I observed yesterday is still going on. Now I can hear overlapping tones that are being made by multiple virgin queens inside the hive. Today’s forecast is identical to yesterdays (unseasonably cold, low of 45 overnight, and high of no more than 60 today). Tomorrow will be the break in the cold and it’ll be sunny, no wind, and 70s.
From my reading the multiple tones coming from the hive means the workers are keeping the virgins in their cells, is that a correct interpretation? If they’re doing that on purpose could this be another after-swarm situation? Are they just waiting until tomorrow when the weather is going to be perfect and I should expect a 4th or 5th swarm (whatever number we’re on now)?
Thanks again for all your help. I very much appreciate it.
-Kevin
Hi Kev, that could be correct. There may be another swarm imminent. I think the best plan would have been to break every queen cell down, bar one…
If the remaining colony is feeble, as you describe, it would be hard to imagine that it would swarm again.
I must confess to not listening close enough to hear the piping sounds of virgin queens. I also haven’t read extensively enough to answer that question. I find that if a split is 4 frames of bees strong, it can swarm with the first virgin queen. So what I do is split it down to 2 frame splits with queen cells in each split, then they don’t swarm.
In my case it’s always with emergency queens, not swarm queens. Swarm queens happen when a colony wants to swarm. Obviously the urge to swarm can drive a colony to swarm itself into oblivion, which goes against the idea that “bees know best”.
PS this is a video we made quite a few years ago before I started keeping splits in my yard.
This is another video of a tiny swarm.
In both cases, the tiny swarms may not have made it without intervention.
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Today came and went and no swarm. You can still hear the virgin queens piping and quacking to each other through the boxes. If the birds aren’t singing it’s so loud you don’t even have to put your ear up to the box to hear it.
Today at 2pm it was windless, sunny, and 72 degrees and there were a massive amount of drones doing what seemed to be orientation flights. At first I thought, this is it, it’s the swarm, but it was just bees flying around en masse. So many drones, I’d say greater than 50% drones. Then by 3pm they were all back in the hive or out doing whatever it is they do and traffic at the landing board resumed as usual.
Honestly I can’t figure out what the colony is doing in there if they’re keeping all those virgin queens hostage in their cells.
Also as I was observing this hive from a distance of about 10 feet perpendicular to the entrance, well out of their flight path I was stung twice. That’s never happened before, that level of aggression with me just standing still, but at this point it is a queen less hive so maybe they’re just deeply unhappy.
Hi Kev, hopefully that colony is done with swarming. Obviously the colony still had a couple of guard bees prepared to commit suicide for what they perceive to be for the good of the colony.
It’s worth remembering that co2 triggers bees defensive behavior. By standing still on a windless day, you’re creating a fair amount of co2 around you, which is not getting blown away.
co2 is one of the major components that triggers bees defensive behavior. Along with dark colors, hair, vibrations & distress pheromones.
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I went out just now and this is the 4th day of tooting, piping, and quacking in the hive. I tried to listen carefully to see if I could ascertain distinct sounds and the direction they were coming from and estimate at least 3 or 4 tooters inside.
Today is going to be warmer than yesterday, might hit 80 degrees.
If I went into the hive and attempted to terminate all the virgin queens except one, and released her manually and put the hive back together, what would you think of that strategy?
Best to let them duke it out amongst themselves. They will not benefit from human intervention. Millions of years of evolution without us has left them with a very good strategy 
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I agree with Dawn on leaving them to sort it out. However I guess you’re trying to avoid another swarm.
If you think the colony is strong enough to swarm again, you can always divide the colony, as long as both portions have queen cells. That way you double the chance of getting a successfully mated queen. That’s the sort of thing I do, because sometimes too.many queens is never enough.
After the passing of the winter solstice yesterday, it’s only a matter of weeks before I start splitting my own hives. Then I’ll be juggling populations in an attempt to prevent swarming.
You probably don’t have enough gear for another split. You can do it temporarily in a cardboard or poly-styrene box for example.
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I’m not sure the hive is strong enough to swarm, I’ve been leaving them alone these last two days and they haven’t swarmed but things near the hive are becoming hazardous. I can’t get anywhere near it without activating guard bees. I just got stung trying to walk past it towards my kitchen garden. It’s stung my partner twice today, me once yesterday, and twice the day before, just from being in the vicinity.
It’s stormy weather all day tomorrow, but Friday or Saturday I’m going to open it up, do an inspection and make a final decision on what to do based on what I see.
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Oh my! Hope mine never get so defensive. Haven’t been popped in a while. I bet you have some white foot in the yard (Broadleaf plantain). Chewed into a paste does wonders for a sting.
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Hi Kev, good luck with the inspection. If you find that a colony is difficult to manage, while it’s small, you should consider re-queening while it’s still small, because it will just get worse as the population builds, making it more difficult to find the queen in order to dispatch her.
Anyway, there’s no rush. Wait and see how the progeny of the new queens turn out.
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The Updated 5 Hive Inspection: Went in today to see what the results were from all the swarming and parent hives and it was a mixed bag.
PARENT HIVE 1: This is the hive that produced the first two swarms I talked about, the ones that were easy to capture and re-home. Cutting to the chase for those swarmed hives, BOTH swarmed hives have laying queens, eggs, and brood (the laying queens are inferred, I never actually saw them but wasn’t looking). However this Parent Hive looks very bedraggled. In theory it should have had the same type of virgin locked and ready to go after the second swarm but there is no sign of eggs, absolutely no brood (it’s all hatched out), no remaining queen cells, and lots and lots of drones. There are definitely lots of workers inside but all they’re doing is storing honey (there’s TONS of capped nectar and pollen in there, maybe 6 frames worth). So I’m taking the guess that they did not make a successful queen for themselves and I’m going to attempt to re-queen them this coming week. If it doesn’t work I’m ok with that, it’s a learning experience for me to attempt it.
This hive should have been on the same timetable as their after-swarm which managed to get their queen mated and laying in the shortest of time intervals cause after just 2 weeks that hive has 5-6 day old larva developing.
PARENT HIVE 2 (aka the Windblown Hive): This is the hive that had the virgins in it tooting and quacking all week. I left them alone till today’s inspection and although the inside looks exactly like Parent Hive 1 (tons of honey, more than any hive, and more drawn out comb than any other hive; tons and tons of drones) they don’t have any brood to speak of. However, all of the queen cells were empty. I looked and none of them had any virgin queens being held hostage anymore. So I can assume those virgins did get released at some point and one was victorious and is out there in the world somewhere getting ready to bring the hive back into balance, so I’m going to do nothing with this hive. Not feeding them, not going to requeen, just going to wait and see since their last swarm was only 8 days ago, and the queens couldn’t have been out there in the world for anymore than 3-4 days based on the last time I heard tooting and quacking.
SWARM #1` (from Parent Hive #1): They took the original queen with them and have been laying the whole time, they have beautiful brood frames but definitely need more workers to build out so they have a top feeder on them that I filled up.
SWARM #2 (after-swarm from Parent Hive #1): This was the best news of the day. They had larva at the 5 day stage and eggs in multiple drawn out frames. The queen mated and began laying very quickly and this hive is also being fed with the top feeder to help them build out since they’re only working with about 3.5 frames at this point and it’s the end of June.
SWARM #3 (after-swarm from the Windblown Hive/Parent Hive #2): They are still coming and going from their Nuc box, and their home hasn’t arrived in the mail yet so I didn’t go inside. I thought best to let them be until I have their new home ready. All I know is they haven’t absconded because they come and go from the tiny little entrance everyday.
So in summation there’s two queen-right hives, two queen-less hives, and a nuc that remains to be seen. I’m happy with this because I started with 2 and as a beginner had only planned to overwinter 2 and learn through the process.
Thanks again to everyone who commented and help. It means a lot to me.
-Kevin
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