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Honeybee Colony split #866252

Asked April 29, 2024, 9:37 AM EDT

I recently split 2 hives that had swarm cells. The queens went into the splits. The original hives have the swarm cells. At what point is it too late to introduce new queens instead of letting them naturally create new queens? The queen cells, as of yesterday have not been capped yet. Most were charged cups, a couple near capping. I had planned on using new queens but they caught me off guard with the swarm cells. I don't have the new queens and I'm not sure how long it will take to acquire mated ones.

Ionia County Michigan

Expert Response

Good job catching that your colonies were building swarm cells in time find queens and split the colonies.

Queens have a pupal development stage of about 8 days, so given that you found cells close to being capped, you should be able to predict approximately when new queens will emerge.

Most beekeepers try to introduce caged, mated queens within 24 hours (or sometimes at least within 48 hours) of the colony being queenless. Your chances of the colony rejecting the mated queens may increase if they are queenless for a longer period of time. 

If you decide to introduce mated queens, you should remove all queen cells. It can be easy to miss queen cells, so you'll want to shake bees off of the frames to look for them. Queens can mark queen cells for the workers to remove, but an introduced queen may not be released in time or may miss one.

Letting your colonies requeen with the swarm cells seems like the easiest option. Swarm cells usually produce good quality queens because the queens develop with great nutrition and in large cells. Colonies can swarm with virgin queens as they emerge, so I'd be inclined to leave just a couple of queen cells per hive. You shouldn't shake bees off the frames with the queen cells that you leave, since shaking may damage developing queens.

Happy beekeeping!

Thanks for the advice. I decided to just let the queen cells develop. I accidentally damaged one of the queen cells in one of the parent hives, bumped it against another frame when I pulled it. At that point I just put it all back together and closed it up. I guess I'll just leave all of the queen cells there so I don't damage any more. 

The splits are taking off slowly but seem to be doing alright. However they are storing a lot of nectar and are slow to build new comb. Most of the capped brood I gave them has hatched and they look to be backfilling those cells with nectar. I'm worried they will run her out of space to lay. Unfortunately I don't have any drawn comb to give her. 

On Mon, Apr 29, 2024 at 3:00 PM Ask Extension <<personal data hidden>> wrote:
The Question Asker Replied May 07, 2024, 3:52 PM EDT

It's common for bees to store nectar in the broodnest when they aren't queenright. Bees will move stored nectar outside of the broodnest when they have a new queen. It's also common for bees to be slow to draw new comb when they aren't queenright.

So... one of the hives I split swarmed. I was able to witness it happening. It was too soon for there to have been a new mated queen. The timing works out to where they may have swarmed with a virgin queen. Highly unlikely, but is it possible they can swarm without a queen? I caught them on a branch in my yard Sunday and have them in a box. I figure I will leave them alone for a while, so far they seem to be sticking around. It was a large swarm and they are taking up every inch of a full deep. I only had 1 frame of drawn comb to give them, the rest is foundation. If I can prove them to be queenright I would consider selling them since I don't care to have more than 4-5 colonies. 

There are still capped queen cells in the hive that swarmed, not very good looking ones. There were capped queen cells when I split them 2 weeks ago so maybe they made new ones since then? My concern is they aren't queenright and their replacement queens won't turn out well. Destroy all the queen cells and introduce a mated queen? Let them be and raise their own possibly weak queen? I'm in my second season and at a loss right now! lol

I now have concerns the other hive I split plans to swarm. Both of the colonies currently have 2 supers on top with the bottom supers mostly full of nectar/honey. The top supers are still mostly empty drawn comb. 

On Thu, May 9, 2024 at 8:44 AM Ask Extension <<personal data hidden>> wrote:
The Question Asker Replied May 14, 2024, 11:55 AM EDT

So... one of the hives I split swarmed. I was able to witness it happening. It was too soon for there to have been a new mated queen. The timing works out to where they may have swarmed with a virgin queen. Highly unlikely, but is it possible they can swarm without a queen? 

Colonies can swarm with virgin queens. 

A colony can start to swarm without a queen, but the swarm normally returns to the hive if the queen does not leave with the swarm.

I caught them on a branch in my yard Sunday and have them in a box. I figure I will leave them alone for a while, so far they seem to be sticking around. It was a large swarm and they are taking up every inch of a full deep.

I suggest giving the swarm another box since it's full.

I only had 1 frame of drawn comb to give them, the rest is foundation. 

That's fine; swarms are usually quick to draw comb.

If I can prove them to be queenright I would consider selling them since I don't care to have more than 4-5 colonies.

There are still capped queen cells in the hive that swarmed, not very good looking ones. There were capped queen cells when I split them 2 weeks ago so maybe they made new ones since then? My concern is they aren't queenright and their replacement queens won't turn out well. Destroy all the queen cells and introduce a mated queen? Let them be and raise their own possibly weak queen? I'm in my second season and at a loss right now! lol

Normally queens raised under swarming conditions are good queens. If the colony doesn't end up with a good laying queen, you can combine it with the queenright swarm colony.

If you decide to destroy all the queen cells and introduce a mated queen, you run the risk that a new queen has already emerged and that the colony won't accept the mated queen you introduce.

I now have concerns the other hive I split plans to swarm. Both of the colonies currently have 2 supers on top with the bottom supers mostly full of nectar/honey. The top supers are still mostly empty drawn comb.

You can check if the colony plans to swarm by opening the hive and carefully looking for queen cells.

You can try reversing the honey supers so there is empty drawn comb immediately over the brood nest.

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