# Ever seen this?



## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

you might have a hatched virgin already too. Drop that clump in a shallow bucket and see if you can locate a queen.


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## Thomassen (Jul 6, 2014)

I dropped them into a bucket. Didn't notice a virgin queen, but it is getting dark and I have older eyes. They dropped like a clump and took a while to separate them. I put them into a bait hive that I have and put that on some blocks a few feet away. I assume they will go back to the main hive if there was no queen.


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## Thomassen (Jul 6, 2014)

I dropped them into a bait hive, as reported. They were not there this afternoon. Probably went back to the hive.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

You have capped queen cells? They're about to swarm. Was told that once that first cell gets capped that they're about to go. Keep an eye on them and maybe put out a swarm trap. Might even consider doing a walk-away split.


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## Thomassen (Jul 6, 2014)

Came home from work around 5:30 and checked my hive. This is what I saw. The girls still seem to be practicing, getting ready to swarm. I knocked them down into a bait hive I had nearby. Hoping that they will stay there if they are with a queen. Any thoughts?


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

When you have multiple queen cells a hive can send out multiple swarms with virgin queens. So you can spit the hive so each nuc will have one cell or cut out the smaller cells only leave the biggest two.
Every once in a while they will still decide to swarm with only two cells. Bees do what bees do


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## jadebees (May 9, 2013)

Dan is right, some hives make multiple swarms. I like to pinch all but the biggest queencell in each split.


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## Thomassen (Jul 6, 2014)

I split my hive two weeks ago. I put the old queen and five bars of capped brood, and one bar of pollen and two of nectar into an old hive. The main hive has swarmed three times since the split (all within the last 3-4 days). I've been able to recover two of them.


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## jadebees (May 9, 2013)

The worst thing about an extremely swarmy hive is that they take all the resources they get all year long and turn it into bees that just fly away. The Hive is just decimated and you get nothing.

I have used those as a comb and brood donor, for other hives. I've used them for making small splits. Over the years Ive gotten a few hives with that trait. Personally I have no idea what makes them do that but there is obviously something wrong with them. They make swarms that have no chance of living thru winter, even late in the year. Some that I have had were requeened after I distributed their resources. If allowed to continue it will usually empty the hive.


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## Thomassen (Jul 6, 2014)

I recovered swarm number 4 yesterday. I inspected the hive they came from. There is one capped queen cell left. Here is a video link for my swarm recovery, if anyone is interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6iXbyTJbZs


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

If you can you can watch for mating flights now. mine did it mostly at 4:00 in the afternoon


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