Swarming/splitting help!

[Morgan Poole]

Hi everyone! I'm new to bees this year, so I apologize if I'm asking stupid questions!

I started off with two packages and they have take dramatically different paths. One package I installed has been doing fantastically. The second had a DOA queen, and by the time I got a replacement I had laying workers (very obvious with 4-5 eggs per cell). Long story short, my attempt to install the queen seems to have failed, predictably. The weak hive currently has only 4-5 medium frames of comb and very few bees overall. However, interestingly, they do seem to be mostly workers, and they are all very dark like the replacement queen and not at all like the original bees. 

I checked the hives today. I didn't see a queen in the weak hive, but I did see eggs and larva in a pattern that almost looked queen laid (one egg per cell that looked fairly appropriately placed in the bottom of the cell, tight pattern). They seem to still be declining, but very slowly. So I honestly don't know what's going on with them, if it's just a very weak hive with a poor queen or if it's a laying worker who is just good at mimicking a queen.

The second hive has boomed, though. They have three mediums stuffed full of bees and brood and they are quickly drawing out and filling a honey super that I added last week. I saw the original marked queen today, as well as at least half a dozen swarm cells. 

So I'm wondering if it would be appropriate to split them this time of year, removing a box of bees and brood, including queen cells, and starting a new hive. Then the complication is that I would really very much like to avoid purchasing new equipment, especially since I have a second hive already that is on the slow road to collapse. And a husband who would not be on board with investing more money in my bee project this year, I suspect.

Is there a way that I could split my strong hive and use the equipment from the weak hive? I know that combining with a laying worker hive would be a terrible idea, but could it work to remove the entire box of the weak hive and move it far away so that the laying workers can't find their way back? Is there a way to prevent the returning bees from not just attacking the new ones? 

Alternatively, is there a way to hurry up the process of decline for them so that I can just start fresh with the split? And if I do, will the bees remain in the new hive, which would be side by side with the existing strong hive?

Sorry for all of the questions. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! 

And if anyone has any interest in being a mentor for a newbie who feels like she's just feeling her way around in the dark a bit, that would be amazing, too!

(the attached picture is the weaker hive's brood pattern, taken today)

[Tom Borchardt]

You could take a couple frames of eggs and brood (with the attached bees, check to make sure that the queen is not there) from the strong hive and put them into the weaker hive to give them a little boost.  The brood pattern in the photo looks good, this colony may recover.

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[Matthew Hennek]

It looks like your weak hive is queen right and, from the limited view of the picture, has a good laying pattern.

If you don't want to invest in new equipment here's what I would do.

1. Get a Jester nuc box with medium insert from dadant (or a cardboard medium nuc box if u can find one). It will cost you <$15.
2. From your strong hive take 3 frames of brood (mostly closed) which includes the frame your old queen is on, 1 frame of pollen/honey, and 1 undrawn frame and put them in the nuc box.
3. Take 1 medium that has at least 1 queen cell and lots of brood bees and put it on your weak hive with a sheet of newspaper between those boxes. Make sure the old strong hive still has maybe 3-4 queen cells still left in it.

You now have a 3 medium strong hive with queen cells, 2 medium weakee hive thats a bit stronger and has Queen cells and a nuc with your old queens. The weak hive may be queen right and if it is they will tear out the queen cells but are now a bit stronger. The strong hive will raise a new queen and probably not swarm. The nuc will be a source of drawn comb and brood for your other hives. Every week or two you'll take out a frame of brood (w/o the queen), put it in your weaker hive, and replace it with an undrawn frame. You'll still have an extra queen if you need it.

Alternatively instead of doing step 3 you could flip the locations of the strong and weak hives. The forgers from the strong hive will bolster the weak.

[Matthew Hennek]

Correction

You now have a ***2*** medium strong hive with queen cells, a 2 medium weaker hive thats a bit stronger and has Queen cells and a nuc with your old queens.

Also, make sure your strong hives alwayso have 1 box of undrawn foundation to work on. Don't think that just because it's 3 medium boxes it doesn't need more. My hives typically grow from nuc or package to 3 deep (5-6 medium) in their first year.

[Paul Zelenski]

Matts advice will certainly work. There are numerous other options you can pursue, depending on your goals and risk/expense tolerance. The important thing is that with half a dozen queen cells, your strong hive is going to swarm. (If they are truly queen cells and not queen cups) If those cells were capped on your last inspection, you need to move quickly (if they haven't swarmed already).

If your weak hive truly was queenless, I would say you could make a split into that location and simply shake the bees off the old frames rom the weak hive a bit away from the hive. The laying workers won't return but the rest of the bees will. But, it seems your hive probably has a queen. Since it looks like it has a queen, that seems like a waste of a queenright hive. Personally, I think it is getting a bit late in the year for splits that you expect to grow to a full,size hive. Making nucs is fine if you can overwinter as a nuc, but that is going to require new equipment. I don't think you can overwinter in an EZ nuc, but haven't tried it. I would say a 5frame medium nuc has no chance at overwintering, though. So, you have a few options.

1) Follow Matts advice and combine the nuc back later in the fall or if your hive fails to raise a queen. This should, work fine.

2) take some frames of capped brood and the clinging nurse bees and give it to the weak hive. Moving a couple queen cells wouldn't hurt just in case they need a queen. Give your strong hive more space and cut out any more queen cells and monitor closely. Make sure that they have not already swarmed and taken their queen with them or they will end up queenless.

3) You can certainly make a split and if it builds up great. If it doesn't, you can combine later and have a queen to sell. You could,put the split I. The weak hive location, use that equipment and shake the weak hive out in front of the hive. (If you have a queen, thought, it seems wasteful)

4) move some frames of brood from the strong hive to the weak hive (#2) but switch the hives locations so the weak hive gets all the foragers and the strong hive loses them. It will help equalize the hives.

5) let the strong hive swarm.

There are any number of ways not listed to manage your hives for your desired outcome. It is hard to say what you should do when there are so many options with your situation. Personally I would probably go with 1, 2, or 4. Also, if you say where you are located, you might. Find an experience keeper thst is close by that wouldn't mind taking a peek with you.

Again, if there were capped queen cells, you need to move fast, but be sure they haven't already swarmed so that you don't leave the hive queenless.

[Paul Zelenski]

Also, I think 3 mediums is too small for a brood nest. If you're using an excluder it is probably contributing to the swarm tendency. I think you need 4-5 mediums to successfully overwinter. Just my opinion, though.

[James]

I guess I'd worry first about the hive that has swarm cells.  It can be hard to suppress the swarming instinct once it starts.  You could end up with your weak hive, and have your booming hive weakened by swarming off.  One approach would be to try the Demarree method, which shouldn't require any new equipment.  Unfortunately, everybody who writes about it does it a bit differently, but this link http://countryrubes.com/template/images/Swarm_Prevention_By_Demaree_Method.pdf

is about as concise as it gets.  The method is usually quite successful, and when complete you'll be back to one hive with little reduction in honey yield.  But it also gives you the option of creating a split if you want/need to get a second hive started or want to requeen your weak hive.  And it will buy you a couple of weeks of time to evaluate your weak hive and decide what direction to take there.  And as others have suggested, you can also transfer some brood frames from your strong hive to the weak one to see if that helps.

[Matthew Hennek]

Interesting method and worthing knowing, however as the article states that method is not done when swarm cells are present. Once the cell's are present its darn hard to stop them from swarming short of removing the queen. As Paul stated, that nuc/split can be recombined later in the season. Pulling the queen when swarm cells are present at this time of the year on a strong hive can actually benefit the hive as it provides a brood break and can reduce ones Mite load. The bees present will continue to build up the hive and you'll probably up with a better queen than the one that came from the package.

[Paul Zelenski]

All valid options. This is why it's so hard to give advice ;)

> On Jun 25, 2016, at 10:43 AM, Matthew Hennek <matthew...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Interesting method and worthing knowing, however as the article states that method is not done when swarm cells are present. Once the cell's are present its darn hard to stop them from swarming short of removing the queen. As Paul stated, that nuc/split can be recombined later in the season. Pulling the queen when swarm cells are present at this time of the year on a strong hive can actually benefit the hive as it provides a brood break and can reduce ones Mite load. The bees present will continue to build up the hive and you'll probably up with a better queen than the one that came from the package.
>

[Tim Aure]

Another thought: if you can find the queen (which is hard in a big hive unless it's marked) and pull her with a couple of frames of brood you create an artificial Swarm.
You could also split the queen cells and break down the large hive into nucs. You'd probably have to feed as we're near the end of the June flow. Go two queen cells per nuk
As not all will return from their mating flight
🤔
Sent from my iPhone

[Morgan Poole]

Thanks so much for the advice!!

I knew I needed to act pretty quickly, so I really appreciate all of the help. I decided to keep things simple to start and gave the weak hive 4 good frames of mostly capped brood. I destroyed all of the queen cells and hopefully gave the strong hive a bit more room. If I see more queen cells next time I check, though, I'll try some other suggestions for sure if there are any.

One more question, though. I had given them a honey super (probably too soon, it sounds like) a week ago. They've started to draw it out and fill it with honey, and I had added the queen excluder Friday when I checked them. Is it too late to add another brood box below that? Can I just give them an empty box under the honey super and keep the queen excluder in place, or should I remove the honey super altogether for a while and let them focus on building up another brood box?

Also, you all were very right about the weak hive being queenright! Every time I checked them since I installed that queen I checked pretty thoroughly for her without any luck. But today when I was just kind of casually glancing again, sure enough, there she was! 

[Paul Zelenski]

You can always add more boxes. I would add another under the queen excluder so you have at least 4 boxes for winter.  Personally I don't use excluders, especially the first year with a hive, because I don't want to force honey when building up for winter is my top priority. If you use one, that's fine, but only after the brood nest is as big as you need it to be. 

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