Author Topic: **** queen clip!  (Read 2779 times)

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Offline rober

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**** queen clip!
« on: April 14, 2016, 09:36:10 am »
I have a hive that both deeps are side to side & top to bottom with brood & of course making swarm cells. my plan was to catch the queen & set her aside, put all the frames with swarm cells in one deep, put the queen in the other deep give them both a deep of empty frames, & move the swarm cell hive to my out-yard. that was the plan............I finally found the queen on the last frame of the bottom box & when I caught her the clip hinge pin slid out & she flew off. I closed the hive back up & the next morning could not find the queen. she was only a foot from the hive & she probably is back in the hive. I pulled all the frames with swarm cells & gave one each to queenless hives & made a nuc with another.
QUESTION-with no swarm or queen cells can I still split up the deeps with equal frames of brood in both & let the queen end up in in whichever box? if need be I will have some queens available in a few days.

Offline G3farms

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2016, 10:24:08 am »
You can make your queenless splits, but will need to have eggs in each one for them to make queens from OR put some queen cells, virgin queen or mated queen in with them.

Why not just put a frame with a queen cell in each split or cut out a queen cell from a frame that has several cells and install in the splits.
Bees are bees and do as they please!

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Offline LazyBkpr

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2016, 08:22:55 pm »
I had three of the plastic queen clips.... 
http://www.mannlakeltd.com/beekeeping-supplies/product/HD-100.html

 Two of them broke the moment I tried to open them to catch a queen...  I ordered the stainless steel ones and stomped on the third plastic one JUST to make sure I never HAD to try to use it..  The two stainless ones have captured many a queen with no problems...
   http://www.mannlakeltd.com/beekeeping-supplies/product/HD-102.html

   The rest I think G3 has well covered!
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Offline rober

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2016, 09:36:26 pm »
I've had the same experience with plastic clips. you just can't open them too wide. this was a stainless clip! like I said the pivot pin slid out.

Offline LazyBkpr

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2016, 09:53:01 pm »
ouch...   Have not had that happen, but now I have to go look at them to make sure they are well crimped!
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Offline rober

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2016, 10:48:02 pm »
& as far as the splits. you never know how it will go but last year I had 2 hives on the launch pad. I made nucs/splits out of the frames with swarm cells & they just kept making more swarm cells. when I put all the remaining swarm cells in a queenless deep & added a 2nd deep with empty drawn comb they finally quit making new cells.

Offline neillsayers

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #6 on: April 16, 2016, 12:54:57 pm »
Had that happen on my first clip (plastic). Put a drop of superglue on the end of pin and its worked since.
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Offline rober

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #7 on: April 17, 2016, 03:28:09 am »
I put a washer on the pin & super glued the washer to the pin. there's an industrial grade super that comes with 2 reinforcing powders, one for metal & one for plastic. still haven't seen that queen.

Offline neillsayers

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #8 on: April 17, 2016, 11:50:35 am »
Is the hive queenless? Have they started rearing a replacement?
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Offline rober

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #9 on: April 17, 2016, 11:18:01 pm »
i'm checkingit  in the A.M

Offline neillsayers

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #10 on: April 18, 2016, 12:37:57 am »
Good Luck, Bud!
Neill Sayers
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Offline rober

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #11 on: April 19, 2016, 11:21:10 pm »
went thru this hive again. I had put a queen excluder between the 2 deep boxes figuring the queen would be in the box with eggs. I found no eggs & no queen. in the bottom box there were 2 supercedure cells. in the top box there were  more swarm cells so I split the 2 boxes giving each a 2nd box of frames of drawn comb & moved 1 to my outyard.

Offline Les

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #12 on: April 20, 2016, 11:34:21 am »
I will never use those plastic clips again either.  Last year we tried to snag the queen so we could mark her and just like your experience, she got out and flew off. 

Offline rober

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #13 on: April 20, 2016, 04:50:53 pm »
it was a stainless steel clip. the pivot pin slipped out.

Offline rober

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Re: **** queen clip!
« Reply #14 on: April 22, 2016, 07:17:29 am »
the queen must have been in the original hive. I have a stockpile of assorted metal close to the hives. I was looking thru the pile & looked up & 6" in front of my face was a swarm hanging on a peach tree. suited up & grabbed a couple of ez nuc boxes. misted the girls with a little water, put the box under them & gave the tree good shake & 95% of the bees fell into the box. got the rest into boxes & put them in a nuc. it was easy peasy. the wife made a video on her phone but when she emailed to me it would not open.