# One of my hives swarmed today! Questions.



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Oh My, what a predicament! 
I have no advice really, do whichever your judgement says to do from what you see and what your goals are. It is getting late, but I'd bet there is still drones in your area now to mate a queen within the next two weeks, and a fresh queen in two weeks should lay up a storm and give fresh young bees for over wintering with.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Good call RayMarler.
Still drones here on Long Island. I'd let the virgins mate and check in 
a couple of weeks for evidence of success.
I made some nucs that queens are due to emerge in tomorrow so they
are in the exact same condition as your hive.
I'm betting on successful matings of these new queens and
plan to overwinter them as nucs.


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## Westhill (Jul 26, 2012)

Beginner here so I don't have advice, just sympathy, and I hope you catch them.

Also wanted to chime in as another Long Island beek who saw drones going in and out of my hive today--there is still some action if your Queen can find some near you. Good luck!


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## Mary Beth Reid (May 2, 2014)

Thanks for your responses! I am just wondering if those queens that I released from their cells will be viable, seeing as I let them out early. I thought I had read that the bees usually swarm when the first queen cell is capped. If that were the case here, then these queens were not quite ready to emerge. I guess the bees didn't read the books I read! I will just have to wait and see what happens. Hoping for the best.

As far as the swarm goes, they are in an awkward spot. They are about 14 ft off the ground in a tree on a fairly steep slope, making it tricky to get footing underneath them. I have a swarm lure set out on a 3 legged orchard ladder about 5 or 6 ft beneath them. Lots of bees have been checking it out, but I'm not sure if they are bees from the swarm or other bees from my apiary which is about 20 ft away. At this point, after looking at it many different ways, I think the safest thing is to just wait and see if they decide they like the lure. Otherwise, or unless I come up with another idea that is fairly safe, they are on their own. 

Always learning, and loving it!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>So, thinking I may have learned some things (this is my second year of beekeeping ) I thought I would go through the hive and knock down any queen cells in preparation for giving them a mated queen tomorrow. I figured it was too late for them to raise their own queen. 

If there are drones it's not too late... I never buy queens.

>Well, that was where it got interesting. When I started to tear, at least 2 or 3 of the cells, a fully functional queen came walking out. So now I have at least 2, maybe 3 virgin queens walking around in the hive, that is unless they flew off when I wasn't looking. So now what do I do? 

Nothing.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshardestthing.htm

>Will those queens be viable?

They walked out on their own accord. They probably are.

> Should I just hope for the best? 

Always.

>Or should I try to get them all out and put in a mated queen like I had planned?

I would not. She will just be killed by the virgin.

> If you do think I should try and get them out and introduce a mated queen, do you have any tips for finding the virgins?

My tip for finding virgins is don't. They are too hard to find even in a nuc even when you are good at it. In a full sized hive and you're not good at it, it's just an exercise in futility.

Make up a swarm catching system. A frame of open brood on a pole will do. A bucket on a pole will do.
http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/Hipps-Swarm-Retriever/productinfo/270/


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

The swarm you saw could have been an after swarm. This would explain the discrepancy between swarm leaving and readiness of queen cells. Was there bad weather at any point prior to them swarming?


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## Mary Beth Reid (May 2, 2014)

Just to follow up. Thank you Michael. Appreciate your feedback. I did not try to find the virgins. And I ended up not catching the swarm. For a number of reasons, it just did not work out. The bees did not like my lure. I was watching them all morning and went into the house for a minute and when I came back out they were gone. I had wanted to see if they went to a location somewhere on or near my property so I could observe them over time, but it was not to be.

jwcarlson, it was quite a large swarm and the weather was quite dry and clear before the swarm, so I am not sure it was an after swarm. I may never know.

As of today, I am still not seeing any eggs or brood or queen in the hive. I put a frame of brood in the hive on Friday to see if they would start any queen cells. The frame was mostly very young larvae. When I checked this afternoon, they had not started any queen cells. But is that because the larvae is still not old enough? I do have a good source for a mated queen, but am still not sure if there is a queen in the hive. I guess my question is, if they are currently queenless, how long will it take them to build a queen cell on the frame that I put in on Friday? When can I be absolutely sure either way? Tomorrow is 14 days since they swarmed and I released the virgin queens.


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

You may not see eggs and larva for another week, maybe two. The virgin has to harden up, take an orientation flight or two, then mating flights. It is usually about 28-30 days from capped swarm cell until larva in my experience, but my eye sight isn't real great and there may be eggs before then that I can't see. I also try not to open the hive for about 3-4 weeks when I know there's a virgin inside. 
If you put a frame of young brood in and they didn't make queen cells, you probably have a virgin in the hive. I would wait another week or two. The virgin will kill a mated queen because the virgin is more flexible and can move faster and bend to sting better than a mated queen.


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## Mary Beth Reid (May 2, 2014)

Thanks for your reply. Definitely learning patience from all this, among many other things. It was a chilly 49 F overnight last night so just a little concerned I am running out of time to fix this, if it needs fixing. One day at a time.


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## Mary Beth Reid (May 2, 2014)

Just checked the frame with brood again and there was the queen walking across it. Really relieved. Thanks again for the helpful responses.


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Mary Beth Reid said:


> Just checked the frame with brood again and there was the queen walking across it. Really relieved. Thanks again for the helpful responses.


I'd not bother the hive again for at least a week, virgin queens are precarious for the first couple of weeks. Until they start laying good, they don't give off as much of the queen pheromones as an older laying queen. I've read of newly mated and virgin queens getting killed by the hive when there are to many inspections, etc. 
I may be in that same situation myself. I had a swarm this evening, close to sunset, of all the weird hours. I'm not even sure how large it is because they never clustered in a tree, after flying around for about 15 minutes I found them on the ground in front of two hives. I'm not sure if they are a "practice swarm" or where they came from. I was looking at my hives when I started to notice bees flying around. I did not see them coming out of a hive either. I put a nuc with five empty frames on the ground where they were and they started marching in. It was dark before all were completely in. I'll check them tomorrow, may pop the top to see if there is a queen but probably not, just add a feeder. 
It was 46F here this morning, supposed to be around 50F tonight and mid 80s tomorrow. 
I can move some frames from other hives so I may see if I can save this one and get it through winter, it will all depend on whether there is a queen. If no queen, I'll combine them with one of my other hives.


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## Mary Beth Reid (May 2, 2014)

I am going to wait until end of the week to check my new queens progress. I have another very small hive, a late split that I may ending up combing with this one. I think they have been unsuccessful in raising a new queen. But there are still a lot of drones flying here, so I may give them another week or so. 

Good luck on saving that swarm. Did you find a queen when you popped the top?


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

I checked them the next morning after a cool night (55F) and they were clustered in the nuc. I moved the nuc to a hive stand, after scooping up the double hand full of bees that was under it and putting them on the inner cover so they could go in the hive. The cluster in the nuc looked to be about the size of a football from what I could tell. I checked them about 930-1000 AM before running some errands and they were coming out and looking around. When I got back home and checked them around 3Pm, there wasn't a bee in the nuc! They either went back to their original hive (practice swarm) or their scouts found a "better" home and they moved. I don't think they'll be able to establish a hive and store enough honey and pollen to make it, even with our Alabama winters which usually aren't too bad.


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