Lovely weather all week long and the bees have been very busy. The plan is simply to have a quick scan through the frames looking for fully-developed queen cells only. Opening the hive too frequently will obviously irritate the bees so we're only expecting to take a few minutes, just to reassure myself that I didn't miss a swarm cell at the weekend.
One spare hive body and a spare nuc. I've had this new equipment ready nearby for a while now, just in case we have to create an artificial swarm in a hurry - you can see our two existing colonies in the background.If we find a queen cell containing a larva in a pool of royal jelly we'll have to do the artificial swarm at once. Apparently just knocking a developed queen cell off will not delay the inevitable swarm at all because the swarming process has already been started.
A quick puff of smoke at the entrance, to warn them that we were coming. It is possible that the workers would 'ball' the queen if the colony is unexpectedly disturbed. The queen rarely survives this scrummage so we always give the same few signs that an inspection is on the way (slide out the varroa floor, next blow a puff of smoke at the entrance, then gently drum fingers on the roof). I've no idea if this helps at all but bees are creatures of habit and routine so it makes sense to me!
There are plenty of these again but this isn't what we're looking for in this inspection, it's another swarm cell and I don't want to waste time knocking all those off right now (they could build another one up in 15 minutes anyway)
Here it is, just like I feared! A full-size queen cell right at the top of the frame and...
... sure enough, it contains a nice fat queen larva swimming in royal jelly! I couldn't get a better photo than this unfortunately, most of them were out of focus. So that's it then, time to create an artificial swarm immediately.
I marked this frame with the queen cell on it with a drawing pin so I'd know which one it was without having to handle it again. Queen larvae are notoriously fragile - because the cell's opening is at the bottom it's very easy for the precious larva to become dislodged and fall straight out. The next step is to find the existing queen and isolate her on one frame.
We've usually had no trouble finding Charlie before and thankfully she turned up very quickly.
She's even on an ideal frame for us too - it has to have brood in all stages of development but no queen cells at all.
This frame with the queen on goes into the spare nuc with the lid on, so there is no danger of losing her while we create her swarm.
The entire hive (known as the 'parent colony') is lifted from those black crates and moved 3 feet to the left, with the entrance at the same height and direction as before.
The new hive body is placed on the original site (this is the 'swarm colony') and filled with empty foundation frames.
In the centre I placed one empty frame of fully-drawn foundation so that the queen has room to continue laying eggs immediately, rather than wait for the workers to draw out cells on the new foundation. Ideally there would be two fully-drawn empty frames placed here with a space in between them, if they're available.
The frame with the queen on is removed from the nuc and placed into the centre of the new hive, along with all the bees on it.
The queen excluder is replaced...
... along with all the supers of honey.
Now to the parent colony which is now queenless. There were two frames missing from this brood box so we slid all the frames together and inserted new frames at either end (it is never advisable to split existing brood with empty frames).
The lid is replaced and the artificial swarm is completed now. A 'natural' swarm consists of the existing queen, all the flying bees, and as much honey as they can carry; we have now manually created this situation ourselves.The parent colony on the left will behave as if a swarm has just departed because every bee which has learnt to fly will not be returning to it (their precise navigational skills will take them directly to the swarm colony) and the house bees will use the existing queen cells to raise a new queen.
The swarm colony shown on the right here will behave as if it has just swarmed and set up a new colony, consisting of the existing queen, all the flying bees, and plenty of honey to start comb-building and brood-rearing straight away.
Of course the parent colony in the centre here is now in a very weak situation because it has lost all the flying bees (their main defense force). For this reason I cannot feed them for 2 days, giving them enough time to organise their defenses against honey-robbing.In exactly 7 days (one day before a new queen could hatch out) we need to move the parent colony to a new location. Doing this means that all the flying bees this colony has raised during the week will also navigate back to the original site. They'll find nothing there and reintegrate into the swarm colony again, further strengthening that one. Because the new queen has not hatched yet, they will not have an unfamiliar 'queen essence' on them - this means that the guards at the entrance of Charlie's hive will freely allow them to join them.
Doing this also removes any risk of a 'cast' swarm coming from the parent colony. Sometimes a virgin queen will swarm as soon as she has hatched, taking all the flying bees and as much honey as they can carry. Now this new queen will have few (if any) flying bees in her colony when she hatches, so this 'cast' swarm cannot happen.
[For this reason you may have heard the terms 'prime swarm' and 'cast swarm'. The prime swarm is the initial one - a highly sought-after catch for a beekeeper, a cast swarm is much smaller and has an unproven and unmated queen - not such a useful swarm to chase after!]
