Swarm Season Starts

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that Dorothy's bees were building up quickly, and that I'd need to keep on top of potential swarm preparations.  I was not wrong.

Last Sunday (12th April) I checked Dorothy's hive, and there were the classic signs of swarm preparation.  Firstly, drone brood - both capped and uncapped.  Secondly, a couple of emerged drones.  And thirdly - and most tellingly - a queen cup (the start of a queen cell) with an egg in it.  I had to do something.

With the country currently in lockdown and social distancing in force, the British Beekeepers Association is advising that swarm collection may be a problem if beekeepers can't maintain social distancing when collecting swarms.  The last time I collected a swarm it was a two-person job, and we were definitely less than two metres apart.  That would be a problem this year.  So, the best thing to do is avoid swarming in the first place.

I therefore split the colony, left the laid queen cup in hive #2, and moved Dorothy and five frames of bees to a nucleus.  And then waited a week.

That takes us to Sunday just past, and two tasks - check the nucleus, and check hive #2.

The nucleus is doing well.  The bees are foraging and Dorothy is laying.  There is a decent amount of brood, pollen and stores.  Hopefully they will build up nicely - but not too quickly - I don't want them to start planning to swarm again.

In the hive, the queen cup I saw last week was now a complete and capped queen cell.  There were another three on the same frame, and four more on the frame next to it.  Here's a picture of three of them:

The thing is, eight queen cells are way too many.  If I left more than one, the bees could swarm when the second (and third and fourth) queen(s) emerge.  These are called 'cast swarms' - they tend to be small and have a poor chance of survival.  So it's better just to make sure that cast swarming doesn't happen.  That means assessing the queen cells, picking a winner and removing the rest.

Whenever I do this, I always intend to keep the cell that I saw the previous week.  But when it comes to it, I more often than not change my mind.  Why?  What makes a 'good' queen cell?  I've always gone by a simple principle - bigger is better.  This is because smaller cells can restrict the growth of the queen - particularly her abdomen.  A bigger queen, with a bigger abdomen, means bigger ovaries and therefore better laying capacity.  Since egg-laying is a queen's main task, I want the best layer as this means more workers and therefore a bigger colony, with the best chance of surviving through winter.  It also means more honey, of course!

So, last week's cell looked good.  But two inches to the right was a whopper.  Very long, and already capped.  So, last week's - and the other six - unfortunately had to go.  I cut them out with my hive tool, and left the super-cell attached to the comb.  The larva inside will spend this week pupating, and should hopefully emerge as an adult queen next weekend.  If she does, I shall have to pick a name for her...