Guilfordbeekeepers.org

Started additional inspections yesterday. These inspections included reversals, combinations, removal of extra boxes, feeding of pollen patties and adding additional boxes if needed. Oh yeah, and verification of the queen and eggs/brood.
To my surprise and displeasure, I found swarm cells in one of my hives that was fairly congested. Also found large number of drone cells in other boxes. These were capped queen cells, indicating the possibility of throwing a swarm in the near future.
Just wanted to make others aware that we may be in for an early swarm season.

Kurt

A group of us went through some of my hives today and I did a combination of one hive with a failed (drone laying) queen into another hive that could use the boost.

We inspected another hive that did not appear to be one of my stronger hives based on foraging activity. Much to my surprise, the bees were brooding up the the two medium supers and were down in the deep. The first medium had capped drone brood and a couple of drones walking around on the comb. The queen was there and we saw eggs, larvae and capped worker brood in a decent pattern. We also saw 2 queen cells with royal jelly in them. They were in what is usually swarm position at the bottom of the frames. I did not search for additional queen cells at that point.

The hive was light and so I took a medium from the closed out hive and added it to this hive. It gave them about 9 frames of sugar water honey and the equivalent of one open frame of comb above the current brood. I don't know that the additional stores and additional brood space will slow what appears to be swarm preparations. I will probably be putting out a swarm trap tomorrow and some lemon grass oil in the area of a tree that swarms have gone to in past seasons.

I only hope that these bees are not serious about swarming this early and were only playing a joke on us this afternoon.

Just some thoughts:
From the lectures at the state meetings we heard that the bees do swarm prep some 3 weeks before the swarm actually leaves.

If there were queen cells I would think that it is pretty likely to swarm or at least supercede the queen unless action is taken.

Just to put a strawman out there:
Why not take the queen and a few frames of brood and stores and make a nuc?

I may well do that next weekend, bees and weather permitting. If they cap the queen cells I know about, I'm going to have to take some action--nuc, split or chase a swarm.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe they plan to supersede since the queen has a decent brood pattern.
My guess is early swarm.
I would consider a split, making a nuc may not relieve the congestion enough to prevent a swarm.
A nuc created this early would have to be hived in 6-8 weeks anyway so you may as well hive them now.
You can always recombine the hive at a later date if warranted.
Just my opinion.

I guess a decent brood pattern is one that could go either way, but being congested I would go with swarm as well.
Hmmm Nuc may not relieve the congestion.
They may swarm with one of the virgin queens. But if given more space they may be strong for the nectar flow. Then requeened or combined back later.
Hive them now.
Nucs seem to build up a bit faster then a hive and may provide other options later. Like an extra queen, or just resources.
LOL I wonder what the bees are planning?

This was not one of my 3 strongest looking hives from the outside activity. I have reversed brood boxes on a couple of those and will keep an eye on them. If I do a nuc, it will probably consist of 2 mediums, so it would probably be the functional equivalent of a split.

I keep thinking it's way too early to be considering this, but tomorrow is March, I did see one drone flying yesterday afternoon, and I am seeing capped drone brood and a few hatched drones on the inside of the hive.

I would also think its early to get a good mated queen.
I had two hives with drone brood and a few drones enjoying the good life. But would think it will still take a couple of weeks for the drones to mature after emerging.
I recall seeing Dr. Tarpy take drones and squeeze their abdomen and comment on the maturity of the drone. Of course you only get to do that once per drone.
Thanks for posting that, its fun trying to come up with different thoughts and scenarios once in a while. Of course sitting here does not compare to being in the hive and seeing things first hand and making plans.

"Nucs seem to build up a bit faster then a hive."
In my experience with nucs they only seem to build up a bit faster because the nuc super is 1/2 the size of the hive super.
I thought I would share with everyone how I formed my opinion about the split.
I confess I had help, I went to George Imiries Pink pages (on our homepage)
The following is a excerpt from "Ready Or Not It's Swarm Season"

"OK, now Swarm control.
You must understand that any type of control is going to cause some honey production loss or cause a difficult management problem. You can CAGE the queen on a brood frame to prevent her egg laying. If you have more patience than the bees and you have eyes better than 20/20 you can cut out queen cells every 8 days (never longer than 8 days) and don't miss a single one, you can split your colony into two separate units and recombine them to a single unit in August (that is my choice), and if you really are strong, young, full of ambition, and CRAZY, you can save all your honey crop and not lose a swarm by using the DEMAREE method."

To learn about swarming from an expert, check out these pink pages.
http://pinkpages.chrisbacherconsulting. ... eason.html

http://pinkpages.chrisbacherconsulting. ... rming.html

by:George Imirie (70+ years of beekeeping)
Certified EAS Master Beekeeper

I like Georges pink pages, but have to disagree with his idea of cutting out queen cells. The old queen will just swarm anyway, leaving the hive queenless.

I was happy with a split lol.

So George’s preference is splitting and recombine later.
Now do you want another hive or keep a queen in reserve for future use could determine weather you split or pull a nuc.

The two major reasons for swarms are brood chamber congestion and the age of the queen.
Once the hive decides to swarm removing the queen would be crucial. Prior to the swarm decision other forms of swarm prevention like checker boarding can be just as effective.

ski, you know the old saying....

"Where there are two beekeepers, there are three opinions
on the right way to do things"

I thought it was...."Where there are two beekeepers, there are three opinions
PLUS the right way to do things"

LOL
Too many experts, too many beekeepers opinions, too many right ways to do stuff, what works for you may not work for me, makes my brain kind of swim after a while.

Not sure if this is the right place or not,
I did an inspection of my hive today, I have a screened bottom board and a entrance reducer then a deep brood box and another deep above that then a medium super.
Checking the way I went in, the medium super had bees eating the sugar brick and pollen patty, I didn't pull these frames.
The middle deep has no honey, but was filled with workers drones capped and un-capped brood
The brood box was limited with bees compared to the others but pretty close to every frame was filled with capped honey.
Should I reverse the middle and brood box at this time and have the honey above the capped and un-capped brood?
this way they can work up again and then in about 12 days reverse them again?
thanks in advance.

If you reverse them, are you putting the open and capped brood right next to the open screen, the coldest area of the hive? It's supposed to be near 20 degrees next week.

Thanks wally!!

When will everything move down, mid march and thats when you start the hive body switch?
Also any input on checker boarding will be helpful, i'm reading but friends knowledge like ya'll is AAA ++++

When i find a bottom box with no brood, no pollen, no honey, is when I switch. Otherwise, I never switch. The bees will do it when ready.

Checker boarding, in the true sense, is too complicated and too time consuming. I only switch frames when I have a goal. What is your purpose for checker boarding?

Thanks wally thats when I'll do so as well.
Checker boading i've read was to help prevent swarmimg, not saying they're going to, but trying to learn what to look for and to be proactive