# Confused about queen piping I heard in my hive



## e-spice (Sep 21, 2013)

I have a hive that made it through the winter and seems very strong this spring. It has three 8 frame mediums full of comb and seems to have a lot of bees. I added a fourth medium with empty frames on top about a month ago to give them some more room. They haven't started building comb in the empty super yet. There is lots of activity at the entrance. Overall it seems like a very healthy, strong hive to me. The hive came from a package I got last spring. Right off the bat they replaced the package queen with one of their own. She has led the hive since then.

I stopped by the hive tonight and put my ear up to it and heard queen piping. It was the typical piping and some (what I think is called) quacking. I was pretty confused/surprised to hear that. Does that mean they've swarmed? Or have replaced my queen?

Thanks in advance for any advice.


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

Sounds like it, no pun.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

If you heard piping in the hive you have a virgin in the hive. The swarm may have not yet left due to weather conditions, but it will on the first sunny day. The bees will often not allow a virgin to exit the cell until conditions have allowed the mother queen and the swarm to leave. I have never heard piping when the virgin was part of a colony superseding, I am not sure that they don't pipe, just that I have never heard it.


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## jvalentour (Sep 4, 2014)

According to wiki, piping occurs most often when there are more than one queen in the hive. 
Good question, glad you asked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee#Piping


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## e-spice (Sep 21, 2013)

I did a quick check this morning, not a full inspection, just opened top and looked in. I still hear some piping. They does not appear to be any less bees than when I checked them last weekend, the hive appears to still have lots of bees. They have started to draw comb in in the top super. Activity at the front of the hive seems perfectly normal w/plenty of activity.

Maybe they're going to swarm but haven't yet? Possibly just supersedure?

Would love any additional advice.

Thanks!


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

They have almost surely swarmed. If you pull a few frames my guess is you will find multiple queen cells that have been torn down from the side. If you look real good there's a good chance you may even find several virgins. There's also a chance they will swarm again with one of those virgins. You can't just look in a hive and tell they have swarmed, even in a swarmed hive there will still be a lot of bees left in the hive. Pull some frames and find out what's going on. If you want some other hives it is a great time to break up that hive into nucs with those virgins or queen cells. But, you better do it quick with a virgin already on the loose there's only a limited amount of time you have to use the extra virgins and cells.


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## e-spice (Sep 21, 2013)

johng said:


> They have almost surely swarmed. If you pull a few frames my guess is you will find multiple queen cells that have been torn down from the side. If you look real good there's a good chance you may even find several virgins. There's also a chance they will swarm again with one of those virgins. You can't just look in a hive and tell they have swarmed, even in a swarmed hive there will still be a lot of bees left in the hive. Pull some frames and find out what's going on. If you want some other hives it is a great time to break up that hive into nucs with those virgins or queen cells. But, you better do it quick with a virgin already on the loose there's only a limited amount of time you have to use the extra virgins and cells.


Well I opened up the hive and did a full inspection. It still seems like there are lots of bees in there. I found about six capped queen cells in there and one that had hatched. The cells were at the bottom of the frames. I saw some capped worker cells and a big percentage of capped drone cells. There seemed to be a few more hatched drones in the hive than I would expect. There were no eggs or uncapped larvae that I could see so it has been awhile since there was a laying queen. I looked over every frame but didn't see the virgin queen that has been piping but I guess they can be difficult to find.

So if they did swarm, should I try making a nuc with one of the queen cells to try to reduce the likelihood of losing more bees through a secondary swarm? Is there any chance this was just a supercedure?

I would appreciate any additional information. Thanks.


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

Here's what I do with a hive like that. I will take each frame with a queen cell and put it in a nuc box give them a frame of honey and a couple extra shakes of bees. You can normally make 4-5 nucs out of a hive like that. Or you could easily break it up into two even hives and both hives should have time to build up and make you some honey. 

Now if you don't want that many extra hives. I would go through the hive and remove all but, 2-3 of those queen cells. If you leave 6-8 extra queen cells in the hive it may swarm again once the other virgins start to hatch. A lot of times with a bunch of queen cells in a hive instead of the virgins fighting each other they will leave with another swarm. It's not all that uncommon for a big hive to have one or two after swarms. So by removing most of the queen cells you reduce the chance of an after swarm.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

JohnG has about hit the nail on the head in my opinion. Even if this were a supercedure situation, which it sounds more like a post swarm, a piping queen with other viable capped cells could easily bring about the same results.
A beekeeper with many hives and ample equipment I always think toward the opportunity to increase colonies, However I do realize that not all beekeepers want 100 hives. 
Id increasing hives sounds attractive to you Make as many nucs as you like leaving 2 queen cells per nuc. Since you have piping the colony has a queen present, so I would take all the cells. my goal would be to reduce the current colony by 1/3 it's forces, I f you should loose the queen on a mating flight you can use one from the nucs to replace her. since there will be no brood in the hive. If you are not looking to increase your colonies greatly, I would do a 50/50 split to two 2 medium hives, the best case senerio would be that you Isolate the virgin queen, remove all the queen cells and place three of them in a second hive, destroy the rest, split the resources between the two hives, close it up and take it two miles away, this is one instance where keeping it next door will not work well as you will be switching locations back and forth to keep foragers ample in both hives. For ease of transport you give the hive with the queen cells the partial drawn super for an upper box. Iinto the other hive leave the virgin queen, and add a third box. both hives will draw comb quickly. If you do not find the queen you will have to leave cells in each split and cross your fingers. if cells get torn down n one hive that will be the one with the virgin. In any event as others have stated. you need to act quickly as you have only 8 days from the time the cells were capped before queens emerge.

If you have no equipment and can not get it in time, tear down all the cells and hope like crazy. this is a huge gamble if that is your only hive!


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## jwhiteker (Apr 1, 2013)

Great thread everyone. JohnG and Tenbears, your advice is concise and the thoughts are conveyed very well. I have actually read back threw them a few times to make sure it soaks in. I am a third year beek and I'm constantly learning. If we could readdress this a bit, I have a question. Every season I seem to have a swarm in my small apiary 2-4 hives on average. Each hive is a double deep that has overwintered. I feel like I do thorough early hive inspections. I usually don't see any pre-swarm signs such as swarm cells or overpopulation, but yet I always seem to throw a very large swarm very early in the season here (Apr. 10-20). I even made a split off my strong hive early this season to try and avert this. When I split it, I thought maybe it was too early for this area (Apr.2) (KS). I still ended up with a swarm with a virgin queen this season. Not that I'm upset... both years I've collected my own swarms and made nucs, but I just feel like maybe I'm missing something very early in the season. I even thought these swarms were possibly not mine, but the more experience I gain, I'm thinking they must be mine. No other known hives in the area. Do you have any advice, or should I just keep letting them cast their own swarms and collect them as they occur??


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## e-spice (Sep 21, 2013)

I certainly appreciate everyone's input in this!

I'll plan on splitting off a few nucs and remove any excess queen cells tonight.

I'll update the thread later to let everyone know how it's going.

Thanks!


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## spammy_h (Jul 2, 2014)

John - That's great advice. I'll try that the next time the opportunity presents itself. Thanks for sharing that concept.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

When I first started with bees the standard procedure was to replace overwintered queens with fresh newly mated queens, annually. young queen are less likely to swarm. However, if crowded even young queens will swarm. It take practice in identifying the subtle indicators which tell one a hive may swarm. As in most bee related events timing is everything. Swarm prevention done too early, results in bees swarming with virgin queen, or doing so shortly after the queen begins laying. too late and well, you know the results. Knowing that bees with clean safe accommodations will usually not swarm unless certain conditions exist.(after swarms being the exception) There must be a flow, the hive is crowded, there are capped queen cells. Timing a split to nectar flows can make all the difference in swarm control, minimizing the number of queen cells can prevent after swarms after a split. and providing ample room can decrease swarm likelihood. Just as crowding a hive and feeding heavily can encourage the hive to create queen cells. For every location and season the timing can vary by several weeks. In spring many beekeepers use the blooming of dandelions an indicator that swarming is imminent, I just keep a very close eye on the hives, However I have too many to do more thana blanket swarm prevention and hope like heck.


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## e-spice (Sep 21, 2013)

Ok - I make two nucs from the hive this afternoon. All the queen cups were still intact. I gave each nuc 2-3 of the queen cups and left 2 in the parent hive. I cut out the others. I gave each nuc four frames (and accompanying bees) of resources and one empty frame. I also gave each nuc a few shakes of bees from the parent hive. I put 1:1 sugar syrup on empty supers on the top of the nucs and put entrance reducers on them. If I've missed anything I'd appreciate any input.

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to help me out. I really do appreciate it.


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## ksp107 (May 19, 2013)

I have nearly the exact same thing going on in one of my strong hives that started as a nuc. Lots of bees, 6-8 capped queen cells both in the middle and bottom of the frames. Not a whole lot of brood, but there was some uncapped larvae. Two deeps, with a medium honey super on top that they are putting nectar in. I didn't hear a piping virgin, but I didn't spot my queen either. I inspected 12 days ago and she was fat and plump! No queen cells at that time either! Have a big decision to make now!


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## e-spice (Sep 21, 2013)

e-spice said:


> Ok - I make two nucs from the hive this afternoon. All the queen cups were still intact. I gave each nuc 2-3 of the queen cups and left 2 in the parent hive. I cut out the others. I gave each nuc four frames (and accompanying bees) of resources and one empty frame. I also gave each nuc a few shakes of bees from the parent hive. I put 1:1 sugar syrup on empty supers on the top of the nucs and put entrance reducers on them. If I've missed anything I'd appreciate any input.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for taking the time to help me out. I really do appreciate it.


I've been waiting for one of the new queens to take over the parent hive. The hive still seems to be booming with huge numbers and there is some bearding at night even though I have a mostly empty super at the top that they're actively building comb for. I would like to make sure they don't have swarm cells again.

I have a couple of questions I would love some advice on:

 How long should I wait before inspecting the parent hive again? A reminder about the dates, I heard piping/quacking on April 22nd, the splits were made on April 24th.
 The nucs were the first splits I had made. I am concerned that due to my inexperience that I didn't include enough bees so they could be strong enough. I took a quick look at them and saw only about 2 medium frames of bees, maybe slightly less. Could/should I shake some more bees from the parent hive into empty supers and newspaper combine them into each of my nuc splits?


Thanks in advance for any advice. I really do appreciate it.


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