# Secondary swarms



## B52EW (Jun 3, 2013)

Since they apparently swarmed at least once, maybe twice, I would reduce down to just a couple queen cells in the original hive. Good luck.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

You are very lucky to have caught all three swarms!

But I wouldn't push your good fortune any more: reduce the remaining QCs in the original hive down to just two more. Each swarm weakens the colony by a removing good whack of bees. You have your bases covered now with an increase of three, so if one of the queens doesn't get out and mated safely you can combine and not lose the bees. While getting such bountiful increase is great, it also returns your bees to their establishment phase for the season so it will hammer your honey prospects for the year, especially since you've had so many subdivisions.

I caught a small secondary swarm (not from my apiary) with a virgin-looking (small, not well-mated looking abdomen) queen last summer. I hived them on a Friday night, saw her on Saturday morning and assumed she still needed to go out and get mated. I checked on her the following Wednesday and to my surprise, there were already 1-2 day old eggs in the cells, which is pretty fast if she wasn't mated when she arrived. We had good mating weather over this period, and for at least a week the egg laying was not great (often two eggs/cell). But within two weeks her laying sorted itself into a wall-to-wall pattern and her colony did well over the summer. I had assumed she wasn't mated when she got here, but I am not so sure now.

One thing to keep in mind: since you may not know if the cast swarm queens are mated or not, I would treat them like mating nucs for a week: don't move them or alter them unnecessarily because you never know when the queen is out on a mating flight. And it would be bad news if you changed the location while she was away. Leave 'em be, if possible, for a week or 10 days, then check for eggs. And don't think if you see double eggs in that short time that you have a laying worker situation - it takes much longer for that to get started. Most likely it's just a new queen who hasn't quite mastered her trade yet.

And don't cut down that bush where they landed - something about it says to the bees "Transit Lounge/Waiting Room", and you are lucky that place isn't 20 feet high in a tree!

Enj.


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## cohutt (Feb 13, 2017)

Thanks for the thorough response- confirms what I was thinking. 

I will have a chance to reduce the queen cells tomorrow afternoon.


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