Swarm Control

Yesterday (Wednesday) Flo and I visited the bees. 10 days from last visit. The hive we thought was looking swarmy was!

A quick look showed them close to capping 4 queen cells. Plenty of drones around.

Hive is full of bees and brood of all ages. Not showing any interest in the super.

Nectar and pollen OK.

So we did an artificial swarm into a 14x12 hive. Making sure we moved the queen and NO queen cells.

Today I revisited (08:00). Bees were very easy to spook this morning. Lots of them jumped onto my hands.

Didn't get stung though.

I took one frame with two Q cells from the donor hive (Queenless since yesterday).

We now have a (homemade) nuc with two frames of sugar stores, about 50% stores on each. The rest empty cells.
One frame with 2 sealed Q cells.
One frame with sealed brood on one side. The other side has some fresh nectar.

After making the nuc I went through the donor hive and I found:
frame 2 has a sealed Q cell.
frame 3 has a sealed Q cell.
frame 4 has the two cells we saw yesterday right on the edge of a frame. One is sealed one that is not sealed and they may be tearing down.

I removed the porter escapes on all hives for better ventilation.
Flo asked for photos. I forgot.

I think we will try the mating nuc at the weekend. Taking another Q cell from the donor hive. A cupful of nurse bees, some syrup and a sealed Q cell is all that is required.