Bees Swarming

[card5640]

Hello, I know I saw a beekeeping thread on here, I am looking for a chat room much like this for beekeeping.ANy ideas? I am a newbie and had a huge swarm today and my frames have LOTS of queen cells going, I am ready to throw in the towel, I dont know what to do.I did rehome one swarm in a new hive and then another came from the other hive and I got out a swarm catch and bee lure and they went in there I plan to move them to a hive tomorrow morning. One hive is very nice and the other is MEAN. Help!

 

[NanaKat]

C.P. Dadant wrote First Lessons in Beekeeping. It's a great recource for beekeepers old or new. I paid $6.50 for my second copy a few years ago. You can find the book online....I know Amazon carries it...but other sources are out there.

Since you are having swarms and queen cells and already know what to do, you are ahead of the game.

You can replace the queen cells in your mean hive with queen cells from your nice hive. The swarm is the time the dromes fertilize the queen for her lifetime of eggs. Your workers will be mean until the new eggs hatch...takes about six weeks.

Or you can requeen by taking out the old queen and replacing her with a hybrid queen you purchase or can allow one to hatch in your nice hive and catch her before the hive swarms or the nice queen kills the new queen. The best time to requeen in during a season of light honeyflow since the new queen will be accepted more easily or at the end of a major summer flow. You want a strong colony of bees to make it thru the winter months and you need a good honey storage.

There are several bee-keepers on the site. Type in beekeeping in the search space in the upper right hand corner and you should find lots of threads on the topic.

 

[card5640]

Thanks so much, I was so glad my son was home from college he was a big help and a few curious neighbors. I have the book and will bone up tonight. What a big mess, I thought it was going to be a calmer experience, but the mean hive has been that way since the beginning. I took out about 20 queen cells, I was shocked to see so many, one frame had 5. In 2 weeks I have 5 frames full of honey, that all happened after I placed an excluder on the bottom super, the bottom super is now filled with brood and some honey. How many frames of honey should I keep in there, maybe wait until there are 2 shallows filled before I harvest any? The books dont explain when the right time is to harvest. I need to find a local beekeeper to come over and check out my hives, there is not an association in my county but there is one nearby, I am ready to pay someone an arm and leg to straighten this out. thanks again

 

[NanaKat]

We usually allow the hive to keep two hive bodies and two supers for their use and then harvest when a shallow super is full. A strong hive needs a good honey supply to make it thru the winters here. We have even had to supplement the bees in the winter with syrup.

A shallow super full of honey weighs almost 60 pounds. We return the comb to the bees. It takes a lot of nector to produce that comb and the less they have to work for it, the more honey you will be able to harvest.