# Musical brood splits, now I’m totally confused about how many queens I have.



## kcarroll (May 21, 2021)

A couple of weeks ago I had two hives. Was very pleased that they both made it through winter and seemed to have plenty of food still in store. I started worrying about swarming early, and got my equipment ready to split one hive and try the double screen split then combine on the other hive.

This is my second year of beekeeping, so I’m not sure if I totally screwed this up or what.

Hive A was my VRS queen, and she was laying in the bottom deep like I wanted her to; but I wanted to move her to a Golden Mean top bar hive I’d just purchased. Darker queen.

Hive B had all of her brood in the top medium frames; but I wanted her to be laying brood in the bottom deep again. Golden colored queen.

So queen A was put into the new top bar with all of her bees. Safely away, and broodless.
I then took the deep box (with brood) off of hive A, and set the location up with all medium boxes.

I took all of the brood from hive B that were in medium frames, removed the bees and moved those into hive A to be raised by the split 1 foragers that returned to their hive location.

I put a queen excluder on hive B, and allowed nurse bees to move onto the deep brood frames from hive A overnight.
So hive B still has brood, and a queen for 24 hours longer than hive A which is now queenless. Hive B now also has my VRS eggs, which I prefer.

24 hours later, I was going to insert the double screen board. But decided to take the VRS brood with hive B nurse bees off and put them in a support hive (split 2) instead. My worry was that possibly one of the mating flights might not work out, and I’d rather have a new VRS queen anyway (even if she’d be producing mutts).

Hive A = queenless with brood/eggs from hive B
Hive B = broodless with original queen
Split 1 = VRS queen from hive A, no brood
Split 2 = Hive A (VRS) brood/eggs, no queen

The conundrum happened today when hive A virgin queen went on her second mating flight. I saw it starting and went out to watch the show. I was able to capture a few shots of a dark color queen on the landing board before she left.

Then I turned on my camera and filmed waiting for her return. The queen that returned was much lighter in color. I have her pretty well on video ( posted in comments below).

I looked over to split 2, but I haven’t seen them doing their mating flight behaviors yet… so I didn’t think anything was wrong. Just assumed maybe the lighting had changed.

I had to go back inside to do some work, and when I came out again a few hours later there was a swarm of bees collected on the lid of my new top bar hive. So I hurriedly prepared a deep box, and got them collected. I saw the queen briefly, but she almost flew away so I didn’t get a good look at her. She seemed lighter in color though.

I then checked hive B, a vigorous queen, to make sure she hadn’t swarmed. I found her healthy with new comb and brood, and gave her another box to work with.

I then went to split 2, wondering if their queen had hatched yet. I went all through the split twice and never found a queen although all of the queen cells were hatched and being broken down. Not sure if she’s in there really or not, because I know they can hide pretty well before mating. Her mom was good at hiding too!

My question is, would the virgin queen from split 2 be able to “kick out” a newly mated queen in hive A if she landed back at the hive where her egg was laid? Would the forager bees in hive A accept/prefer her because she was more familiar than the queen who’s egg was laid in hive B? Thereby forcing the new queen (laid in hive B) to leave with her hive B clan?

If you can follow this craziness, lol!

Im wondering if my support hive (split 2) is now queenless; and I caught a swarm with the new queen that was laid in hive B (seen in the video below) because the new queen from split 2 hive who’s egg was laid in hive A went back to hive A?

Or did hive A produce two queens and split itself?

I now have 5 hives, when I only wanted 3. And I’m not sure if I have 4 or 5 queens.


----------



## kcarroll (May 21, 2021)

Here’s the photos of the queen I saw before all of the bees poured out of the hive. I thought it was her “leaving” but she’s darker like my VRS queen.


















Here’s the video of the lighter queen returning.






Fast forward to 12:21 in the video for her first appearance. I had trouble tracking her. She wandered around amongst the workers for a while, fell to the ground, and I picked her back up and she went into the hive.


----------



## elmer_fud (Apr 21, 2018)

What about checking if you have a queen in your hives that you are not sure about by putting a frame with eggs from one of the other hives into them and seeing what they do?

I was not keeping what hive was what in the original post. Calling them hive 1, Hive 2, split 1, and split 2, ect thruout the post might help. It could also be that it is late at night . . .


----------



## kcarroll (May 21, 2021)

I went back through the original post and tried to make it clearer. Fingers crossed!

Since I only have the hive B queen laying in deep frames now, I suppose I could find a frame of eggs and put it in split 2 to see what happens. I’d just need to pinch any queen cells if they made them, but it would confirm if there was a VRS virgin in there or not for sure. And also prevent the laying worker issue while I’m figuring out what to do.

Thanks!


----------



## elmer_fud (Apr 21, 2018)

I would check back in a week for signs of a queen in hive 2. A few days difference between queens taking mating flights would not surprise me from hives that are differnt sizes, queens started a few days apart, and other variables.


----------



## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

resist making assumptions.
I do NOT mess around in the hive that have queens mating.

let the dust settle a bit then check to see who has eggs, in 3 weeks the egg less ones can be combined to the queen you like and re split 3 weeks later.

GG


----------



## kcarroll (May 21, 2021)

Yeah, I think you’re right. I missed all the drama today, so I don’t know what exactly happened. I was assuming the rain would prevent any mating activity. Apparently that’s not the case, as I caught the tail end of it after the rain stopped and I went to check on them.

The swarm looked like they were just wrapping up, and eventually all wandered back in the hive.

Lots of bees were on the ground, so my thinking was they were too young to be foragers and fell off the landing board, so I airlifted them back to hive B which was still fanning away. I eventually came across a small rosette of bees on the ground. Not sure what happened, but at the center of it was the darker colored queen. She was on the ground, and not doing well. I assume she got wet and or too cold, so I brought her in to see if I could warm her up. She isn’t moving more than her antenna.
I found a few other wet bees, and brought them in to see if they could help. They clustered around her once they warmed up, but she’s probably irrecoverable at this point.
If I had known they would mate in the rain, I might have been able to scoop her up when she fell.

One queen down.


----------



## elmer_fud (Apr 21, 2018)

it is possible that that was a queen that emerged later and was kicked out. I think the best thing to do right now is leave the hives alone for the next week, and check how they look next week.


----------



## kcarroll (May 21, 2021)

Quick update, while I’ve been waiting the week out I caught another swarm. There might have been a swarm I missed, as I was keeping an eye on the cluster of bees on the outside of the hive my 80 year old neighbor showed up. She has a habit of showing up at the worst possible times. And by the time she finally left the bees were either back in the hive or gone.

Anyway, when I checked on the first swarm I caught the frames were empty; so I might have caught the same swarm twice, or lost that one too. IDK

For all this effort of trying to keep the bees from swarming, I don’t feel like I’ve done very well. I suppose there’s some comfort in that they are healthy enough to swarm, but I’m still not sure how to get back down from 5 hives to 3 without killing queens.

I ordered a two frame nuc, because I read that you can keep a queen in reserve all summer that way. But then what happens when winter comes?

How can I do this differently next year? Seems like removing the queen cells entirely and recombining would be the only option if multiple swarms are inevitable once the queens begin to emerge?

Im also hoping that the top bar hive makes this easier, as I’ve been told that the cluster moves forward during the winter leaving the back bars easy to remove/ harvest to give the hive some space. I guess we shall see if that makes any difference or not.

Or maybe I’m just lucky so far and I haven’t experienced the loss of a winter hive yet? I’d really like to manage just two, or three hives max. I’m trying to keep it simple. Feels like a losing battle so far.


----------



## elmer_fud (Apr 21, 2018)

kcarroll said:


> For all this effort of trying to keep the bees from swarming, I don’t feel like I’ve done very well. I suppose there’s some comfort in that they are healthy enough to swarm, but I’m still not sure how to get back down from 5 hives to 3 without killing queens.


sell some off. That is what I am starting to do




kcarroll said:


> I ordered a two frame nuc, because I read that you can keep a queen in reserve all summer that way. But then what happens when winter comes?


one option that I have done is move them to a 5 frame nuc, feed them so they build and, and keep them over the winter. 



kcarroll said:


> How can I do this differently next year? Seems like removing the queen cells entirely and recombining would be the only option if multiple swarms are inevitable once the queens begin to emerge?


If what you are doing are keeping hives alive I think you are in good shape. I have found letting my hives have really big brood boxes seems to help some with the swarm impulse. This does not work for everyone though. 



kcarroll said:


> Im also hoping that the top bar hive makes this easier, as I’ve been told that the cluster moves forward during the winter leaving the back bars easy to remove/ harvest to give the hive some space. I guess we shall see if that makes any difference or not.
> 
> Or maybe I’m just lucky so far and I haven’t experienced the loss of a winter hive yet? I’d really like to manage just two, or three hives max. I’m trying to keep it simple. Feels like a losing battle so far.


If it is working why change. I have no experience with top bar hives.


----------



## kcarroll (May 21, 2021)

> If it is working why change. I have no experience with top bar hives.


I’m trying out the top bar hives for two reasons. One is to save my back from lifting boxes full of honey in the fall during inspections. Top bar allows access to all of the comb without having to lift boxes vertically. You can also stop the inspection quicker, if things are not going well for whatever reason, you just put the one bar back and close the lid. Less chance for bees on the ground too.

The other reason is because the VRS hive is a little more protective than the local bees I purchased. I think it is in part because they build in numbers much more slowly and therefore have fewer reserves. Their cluster was much smaller going into winter, but they came out with a lot more honey still in storage. The top bar allows for a gentler inspection procedure, which I’m hoping will irritate them less overall.

The third but more esoteric reason is because of the way I’ve been led to believe that the hive expands and contracts. I’m hoping to be able to harvest mostly empty comb from the back of the hive next spring. I’m more interested in the wax than the honey, so my plan is to only harvest honey when they need space to create more wax.

Being so new to everything, it’s all an experiment for me so far. I feel like I sort of accidentally did the right things last year, but I still also made a lot of mistakes..

Yesterday, I ended up taking the original queen from hive B and put her in the two frame nuc for reserve. I then combined the swarm with hive B using the newspaper method. Seems okay so far. I didn’t see any fighting, and there’s a chunk of newspaper on the ground already after just 24 hours. So I guess we’ll see how that new queen does. I still have the old queen if something goes wrong.


----------



## thill (Nov 30, 2020)

Wow, your experience sounds a lot like mine, overall. Have never lost a hive, had lots of swarms, and have gone from 2 hives to 8 this year, which is more than I want. Did my first newspaper combine the other day.

Last year, my mentor (AW) told me to inspect every week for queen cells during swarm season, but I didn't listen, not wanting "to bother" my bees too much. Last year, I lost 6 swarms at least, and got very little honey.

This year, they started throwing swarms early, and I decided to listen to his advice. I found and fixed some problems last week. This week, I've found a number of queen cells in hives that had none last week, and that worked out well. FWIW, the bees don't seem to care in the least that I'm in there. AW told me that if you do it regularly, they get used to it, and he was right. They are multiplying like crazy, and I'm finally getting ahead of the swarm instinct!

Interestingly, I added several supers last week, and this week they are all completely drawn. In a week! And 2 of the 3 swarms I've caught have completely filled their box with comb, and have gotten supers already. I've had more comb drawn in 2 weeks than my entire first year. I'm adding more supers to several hives today. I bought 100 medium frames, and it looks like I'm going to run out. I did not expect that. Trying to decide whether I should order more before I run out.

Based on this experience, I would recommend that you inspect for swarm cells once a week. Make it quick and only move things around or make splits if absolutely needed. I really wish I had listened to AW last year.

If you post local bees for sale on Craigslist or FB Marketplace, they will probably sell in the first day or two. I've tried to buy and someone beats me to it every time. Now, it looks like I may be the one selling, as I have to figure out what to do with all these hives, which is a great problem to have. 

For now, I'm just going to let them draw as many frames of comb as they want. According to AW, now that I'm listening to him, my next big problem is going to be what to do with all the honey. He predicts that by the end of June, I'll get a 5 gallon bucket from every hive, while still leaving them plenty for summer. Another great problem to have.

I wish you the best.


----------

