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Author Topic: Too Many Cast Swarms In One Hive  (Read 2349 times)

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Offline Jen

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Too Many Cast Swarms In One Hive
« on: May 21, 2017, 01:18:55 pm »
I have one hive that is getting too depleted of bees due to too many cast swarms. Can I capture these swarms, take the queen out, wait a little while, don't know how long, then newpaper these swarms back into this hive?
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Offline Perry

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Re: Too Many Cast Swarms In One Hive
« Reply #1 on: May 21, 2017, 04:34:08 pm »
I think after the first or prime swarm I would have gone through the hive and eliminated all the extra swarm cells but maybe 2, thereby cutting down on all the cast swarms.
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Offline Mikey N.C.

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Re: Too Many Cast Swarms In One Hive
« Reply #2 on: May 21, 2017, 08:00:43 pm »
How do you know do the older q-cells look more mature ? ?
If you end up with 5 or 6 , when do they become unviable , would it be cells 4,5,&6??
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Offline Perry

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Re: Too Many Cast Swarms In One Hive
« Reply #3 on: May 21, 2017, 08:38:24 pm »
I would just pick out the best 2 looking cells, the biggest and least likely to be damaged by putting the frame back and go with those. It really doesn't matter much which are the most mature, a capped queen cell is going to hatch in 6 days or less anyway.
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Offline Jen

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Re: Too Many Cast Swarms In One Hive
« Reply #4 on: May 21, 2017, 11:54:53 pm »
Let's try this again :)

"I have one hive that is getting too depleted of bees due to too many cast swarms. "Can I capture these swarms, take the queen out, wait a little while, don't know how long, then newpaper these swarms back into this hive?"
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Offline tedh

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Re: Too Many Cast Swarms In One Hive
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2017, 08:31:19 am »
I don't see why that wouldn't work, but that's just my guess,not experiance.  Before doing so I would follow Perry's advice and make sure there are only two queen cells left in the hive, to prevent even more swarms.  Again, that's just me thinking out loud.  Ted
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Offline tedh

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Re: Too Many Cast Swarms In One Hive
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2017, 01:23:02 pm »
Thinking about this a little more, I wonder if you'd need to give the "queenless" swarm a frame of brood to anchor them, keep them from abscounding.  But then, if the swarm was without a queen, wouldn't they just go back to their original hive.  I suppose for that to happen you'd have to remove the queen from the cluster where it originally lands.  Could just capture the queenright swarm, remove queen cells from the swarming hive wait a few days, check swarming hive for new queen cells removing if they exist, and combine with queenright swarm. Or, capture swarms as they issue, then when it's all said and done, combine as needed/wanted.  Just a few more thoughts.  Ted
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