🐝 Benny's Bees Swarmed

Benny's bees swarmed. The good news is he was able to hive them. Then they swarmed again, and he was able to catch another. The texts were flying pretty furiously and here's a record of the back and forth:

Monday, Mar 21 · 10:19 AM

Benny Smith

Good morning Matt and Beth.  I think my hive swarmed yesterday.  I found a swarm in a small tree about 30 ft in front of my hive.  Looked to be all Italians.  I managed to capture it and have it in a 10 frame deep and I got the Queen in a cage rubberbanded on a new foundation in the deep.  When should I release her?  Also, I was going to mark her if now is the time to do it? 

This was the swarm.

I had to brush them all off onto the ground on a tarp and then find the Queen and cage her and put her in the deep.

I closed them up in the deep and moves them to the permanent location this morning, set it up, and gave them some 1:1 SW.

These are my 2 hive now.  I set up the new stand and still have the original closed up giving the others a chance to sellers in a bit.

This is how it looked I side after I caged the Queen and have her rubber banded in between these two frames.

Hi Benny, Congrats on hiving your first swarm!

If you have some open brood in your original hive place a frame of that in the middle of the swarm you just hived (make sure there aren't any Queen Cells on this frame). The brood should help keep the bees in the box. If you have some empty drawn comb, give them 1-2 frames. Fill the rest of the box with foundation and keep the feed on them. Swarms will pull comb crazy fast. You should be able to release the queen, but I would give her a couple of weeks before going back in the hive and/or marking her.

In the box that you think swarmed give them a good inspection. You want to leave 1 maybe 2 queen cells in there. Any more and you run the risk of cast swarms, where smaller amounts of bees will swarm with the first few virgins that emerge. If you have extra QC's you can make more splits or destroy them, just make sure you leave them with 1 viable cell, and with any luck, you'll have a new 2022 laying queen in about 3 weeks.

Benny Smith

I think I hear Piping in the original hive.

That's so cool. You may already have virgins running around, getting ready to fight.

Monday, Mar 21 · 12:41 PM

Benny Smith

2022032195120929.3gp.3gpp

249.8 KB

Releasing the Queen.  You'll see her go down right at the end.

Tuesday · 2:16 PM

Benny Smith

My hive threw off another swarm just now.

This time I got most of them in the box with the first shake.

The top cover wasn't on when I shook them in.   I assume I got the Queen since there are a lot of Bees Fanning at the entrances. 

Will this be a Virginia queen?

You're becoming an expert swarm catcher! This one is probably a virgin, could be one of the ones you heard piping yesterday. There could be more cast swarms depending on the size of the original colony, but they should get smaller (and rarer) each time, (this one still looks pretty good size). Your apiary is getting bigger!

Tuesday · 6:14 PM

Benny Smith

So what Queen could still be in the hive?  If the old Queen left on Sunday and this Virgin Queen left 2 days later on Tuesday, what Queen is in the hive now? 

Beth Gee

Hey Benny, it's Beth, it means that multiple queens emerged and they swarmed  instead of fighting...if there are more virgins they could have another swarm. The first swarm is the primary swarm and others are called cast swarms, really depends on the size of the hive and how many queen cells were in the hive. We like to go in the hives and make sure they have only 1 or 2 queen cells.... hope that helps

Benny Smith

I had very good (I think they were) brood frames in the old hive.  See the attached picture.  It was like this on both sides of the frame.  The other brood frames were this populated.  This picture was taken on Sunday after the first swarm.  Is this a lot of brood on one frame?

Weren't that populated...

These were the other frames of brood.

Beth Gee

I circled 2 queen cells side by side. The bottom one looks emerged but the one next to it is still capped. Bet another queen emerged and swarmed 2 days later. We saw evidence of at least another cell too…

Benny Smith

I scrapped those 2 off on Sunday thinking they were swarm cells.  I did fund another cell on the middle of a frame and left it in this picture which inst very good.  I was assuming it was the supercede cell and would be the replacement queen.  It was still owed on sunday.  This picture isn't that good.  Surely it wouldn't have emerged on Su day and swarmed today would it?

The 2 cells I did scrap off did not appear to have e a pupae or larve in them. 

If they are in swarming mode they will put cells everywhere, even hide them along the sides or in the center of the frames. You did the right thing trying to eliminate as many as you could, but it sometimes can be impossible to find them all. If the two you scraped off didn't have pupae in them the virgins could have already been running around. Seeing virgin queens is next to impossible they are a lot smaller and tough to tell them from workers.

Benny Smith

Ok.  So I should still have a virgin queen left in the old hive?  How do I tell if it is a good cell or not and when to leave it alone or destroy it?  I am assuming I should verify I still have a queen in the hive before I start destroying cells?

I noticed both swarms left the hive at the same time of day and both swarmed in the exact same spot on the same tree about 30 ft in front of the hive.  Is that how it normally goes?

Beth Gee

Yes, they will swarm to the same spot, be happy it's not 30 feet in the air! 🙂 We think the best course of action is leave the original hive alone for a couple weeks so she can get mated. Check back and if you don't see eggs you can recombine with one of the swarms.

Benny Smith

Ok.  Thanks!