# Swarm splits



## jig4bass (May 15, 2017)

A couple weeks ago I was able to catch one of my hives preparing to swarm I removed original queen and bees and made two additional splits with swarm cells in each. Went back a few days later and removed any emergency cells that had been built, today I got in the hives and the swarm cells had hatched and no queens in either split, I did notice a few emergency cells still exist but are the queens swarming upon hatch knowing there are still queen cells in the hives, im at a loss any ideas??


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Moving the split with the original queen was the right thing to do, as bees from that split drift back to the other site it will leave that split unable to swarm, so job done for that one, anyway.

Re the other splits, the danger with the split left on the original site is it can collect a lot of bees returning from the other splits, and if it has a number of queen cells, can still swarm anyway once they hatch. But without actually seeing the hive I cannot say if this happened, however it is a good plan to restrict such splits to one or two queen cells. The split that had queen cells but was moved from the original site is very unlikely to have attempted to swarm.

It may be your splits do have virgin queens but they are not laying yet, in fact that is the most likely scenario. Give it another couple weeks, and if you want to check meantime you can give them each a comb with eggs from the queenright hive. If they do not raise queen cells from these eggs it means they still have a virgin queen.


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## jig4bass (May 15, 2017)

Thanks for the info oldtimer, the split with the original queen and one other split were moved to different locations miles from each other, the split with old queen is doing fine it's the other two that have me baffled , got into the hives today and looked thoroughly through both hives and only thing I could find is an empty queen cell in each, bee numbers still look to be the same. I wiped out all other queen cells but one in each hive just to make sure I keep a queen in each. Is it common for a new queen to hatch and leave if other cells are there?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes it can leave with a swarm if the split is still overcrowded. However as you have moved them several miles and eliminated drift this is probably not the case. Depending what stage the queen cells were at when you made the splits, this could be well within the time it can take for the new queen to start laying. And just not seeing the virgin does not mean she is not there, they can be notoriously hard to find, and could even be out mating when you looked.

There was a thread recently of a guy with a new package, after a week no eggs and couldn't find the queen sure it wasn't there, demanded a new one from the supplier and they sent one, after it arrives finds the package did have a queen and she's now started laying.

Other methods than not seeing the queen are really needed to absolutely establish a hive is queenless.

From your description, sounds like you've done everything exactly right, just, need to give it a little more time.


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## Pondulinus (Jun 24, 2015)

In my experience, virgin queens tend to walk around on the bottom board and the wall of the box. They are also a bit smaller in size than a laying queen - so hard to spot.


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## jig4bass (May 15, 2017)

Yes I agree with you guys they are very hard to see at that age, I'll give them some time and see what happens thanks


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## nediver (May 26, 2013)

Pondulinus said:


> In my experience, virgin queens tend to walk around on the bottom board and the wall of the box. They are also a bit smaller in size than a laying queen - so hard to spot.


Just this week I found a virgin in the least likely place. Outside of last frame full of pollen right up on wall. Only bc there were so few bees did I see her. Even then I had to double take. Man she was moving fast too.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Agreed. Unlike a mated queen which is normally in the part of the hive you would expect, virgins can be anywhere. Just a theory, but I've wondered if it's because the first thing a new virgin has to do is hunt around looking for queen cells to destroy.


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

jig4bass said:


> A couple weeks ago I was able to catch one of my hives preparing to swarm I removed original queen and bees and made two additional splits with swarm cells in each. Went back a few days later and removed any emergency cells that had been built, today I got in the hives and the swarm cells had hatched and no queens in either split, I did notice a few emergency cells still exist but are the queens swarming upon hatch knowing there are still queen cells in the hives, im at a loss any ideas??


How long ago was couple of weeks ? I saw Queen Cells in my hive on April 28th. Separated old queen over snelgrove and created some Nucs. I messed up by putting the original queen back into the main hive after 9 days. Anyways, the queen cells in the Nucs I created hatched and saw some eggs today (May 20). Just to give timeline of queen mating and laying.


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## jig4bass (May 15, 2017)

I split this hive may 10th and knew the queens were capped and close to hatching, I believe they hatched this week sometime and I wouldn't expect them to start laying for a couple weeks if they are there. In a swarm scenario will the first hatched queen take care of the other queen cells??


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

DaisyNJ's timeline is reasonably typical so you should base your own expectations on that.

Wether the first virgin takes care of the other queen cells depends entirely on wether the bees will let her. And that depends on wether or not they intend to swarm again.

Those "emergency" cells you mentioned getting rid of in post one, just checking you did actually leave some viable queen cells in each split?


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

jig4bass said:


> I split this hive may 10th and knew the queens were capped and close to hatching, I believe they hatched this week sometime and I wouldn't expect them to start laying for a couple weeks if they are there. *In a swarm scenario will the first hatched queen take care of the other queen cells??*


Lot depends on hive condition at the time. In my Nucs I created, the emerged queen / bees took care of extra cells, as evidenced by cells chewed out from the sides. 

But in the main hive, I could hear queen piping and quacking. That went on for 3 to 4 days. Could be coincidence, my observation has been that a prolonged piping and quacking is indication of bees holding multiple queens in their cells with intent of issuing multiple swarms. Lo and behold, same thing happened again this year with that hive where I heard prolonged piping and quacking. No piping and quacking in Nucs.


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