Steve DonohoeMay 8, 2023
How To Handle Swarm Season
https://thewalrusandthehoneybee.com/how-to-handle-swarm-season/
#beekeeping #swarming
How To Handle Swarm Season - The Walrus and the Honey Bee

You could write a book on the subject of ‘how to handle swarm season’, and several people have. In the one thousand or so words allotted to this blog post, I shall therefore have to miss out quite a bit. Nevertheless, given the popularity of this subject and the time of year, I shall dive You could write a book on the subject of ‘how to handle swarm season’, and several people have. In the one thousand or so words allotted to this blog post, I shall therefore have to miss out quite a bit. Nevertheless, given the popularity of this subject and the time of year, I shall dive -

The Walrus and the Honey Bee
Show threadSquishMay 8, 2023
@SteveD great article, I’m still pretty new at this so still learning. My strong hive that I had taken frames from and replaced with waxed foundation had swarm cells yesterday, and hadn’t filled the new frames yet. Luckily the queen was still there so I started another nuc with her, although I probably should have culled the number of queen cells in the remaining hive. And I swear I heard piping in the nuc after I closed them up, so there may be a virgin in there with the queen, oops. Learning as I go I suppose!
Show threadSteve Donohoe
@Squish Thanks! Yes, if you leave several cells after removing the queen sometimes they swarm (even more than once) with virgins. But sometimes not! It's nice to hear the tooting of a virgin https://www.ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2020/06/queen-bees-toot-to-instruct-colony-to-keep-them-safe#:~:text=Held%20captive%20in%20their%20queen,as%20soon%20as%20she%20leaves.
Queen bees ‘toot’ to instruct colony to keep them safe

Queen bees ‘toot’ loudly in the hive to inform the worker bees that they have a fertile and mobile queen and that they must protect her from her rivals, a new Nottingham Trent University study suggests.

Nottingham Trent University
May 8, 2023 at 2:59pmWeb
Show threadSquishMay 8, 2023
@SteveD oh that article was interesting, thank you! I’ve been telling my kids that the queens are tooting to find each other and have a battle to the death, I guess I was wrong 🐝. So now I’m wondering if I should be going back in to find the extra queen in the nuc, and remove some of the cells in the original hive.