Frustrated bees unable to swarm?

[Wandering Man]

I started with 2 nucs in April. Both queens are marked and have one wing clipped.

Assuming I'm too inexperienced to manage the hive ...

I'm just wondering what will happen next Spring if the bees decide they want to swarm, but t the queen can't join them?

[Chip Euliss]

Great question but I don't have an answer so I'll be interested in the responses--thanks for asking.  I don't clip or mark due to time constraints.  I'd guess that if the response to swarm would occur, you'd have an old queen in a hive with queen cells.  Will she sting the virgins in the cell or will she coexist (not uncommon to have multiple queens in a hive)? 

[G3farms]

My guess is that you would find a swarm in a ball on the grass just outside of the hive.......just a guess.

or

They might supercede her and then swarm.....second guess

I don't clip wings but sometimes mark queens when playing around.

[Lburou]

I have only had one clipped queen try to swarm.  As Jack suggested, she was on the ground less than ten feet from the hive in a small ball of bees.  I put her back in the hive and removed the queen cells.  I later requeened that hive. 

[Wandering Man]

I later requeened that hive. 

Was that punishment for trying to escape?

[Lburou]

I later requeened that hive. 

Was that punishment for trying to escape?

Guilty!  A hive with a young queen is, generally speaking, less likely to swarm. 

[Jen]

Really good question Wman! I think that is a waste of a potentially good queen. Of course, there is nothing saying that she wouldn't be superceded at some point anyway... But still!

So she gets ready to do the natural thing bees do, swarm with her bees, she attempts to fly out of the hive, lands on the ground, and if someone doesn't find her and put her back, then she dies. Sad

[apisbees]

She will try to fly but will fall to the ground a baseball cluster of bees will stay with her for a day or so but will abandon her. The bees will return to the hive so in a sense swarming has been avoided. Unless conditions in the hive change and the bees no longer want to swarm, the beekeeper has added space removed congestion by splitting bad weather keeps the bees and new virgins in the hive. They are going to swarm with a virgin and you may loose more than one cast swarm depending on the hive population.
The benefits of clipping the queen,- from when a young larva is well fed in a queen cup till caped 6 days later, At this time the queen slows egg production and starts to slim down in preparation to swarm as the cells are being protected and the bees will not let her tear them down. The colony has swarmed it is just the bees and queen have not left yet. The bees swarm out about 4 days after the first cells were capped, 2 days before they emerge. In a hive where the queen can not fly with the swarm, the bees will leave 2 days before the first cells emerge but the bees will return to the hive because of no queen and it will be 6 or 7 days later that the hive will once again issue cast swarms with virgin queens. this gives the beekeeper an extra week to find queen cells in the hive and take actions. The prime swarming activity may also have been noticed the previous week so swarm prevention action could be deployed and you didn't loose a large portion of the population.

[Perry]

I had one queen clipped and yes, found her on the ground as previously mentioned. Won't do it again.
Maybe it's just me, but I am finding that I am letting the swarming thing bother me less and less the longer I keep bees. I used to get really upset or frustrated when I knew I had lost a swarm but not so much anymore. It is part of the bees natural cycle and while I do my best to manage it, in the end it is what they are all about, the entire package as it were. What is lost really? If I catch it my hive count goes up, if I don't it remains the same does it not? Yes, I lose some bees and perhaps some honey production, but on the upside I have a hive that has fulfilled its natural instincts, headed by a young queen going into winter.
I can think of a lot worse things.

[Chip Euliss]

 Me too Perry.  Give them what they need and as much time as you can spare.  After I get my hives to field strength, I don't go through them unless I notice something is wrong.  That said, I will make new nucs with frames that have swarm cells.  If it's late enough, they may not make a strong hive by fall but I can combine them in fall if needed.

[Wandering Man]

Would you put the queen and ball of bees on the ground in a nuc?  Or would there be too few bees to start a new hive?

[Lburou]

...I lose some bees and perhaps some honey production, but on the upside I have a hive that has fulfilled its natural instincts, headed by a young queen going into winter.  I can think of a lot worse things.

Perry that is a good philosophy.  Swarms from a beekeeper's hives also influence the gene pool available in your locality.  We should remember that our virgin queens mate with the drones out there.  I let the bees make as many drone cells as they want. I will place drone frames in a really good hive with the same end in mind.  In my view, regions where AHB are established benefit from imported genes to weaken AHB contributions to local matings.

Chip, I'm glad to hear you say that.  I checkerboard the bees in March/April and don't look in the brood nest again until I get bored or when something looks different at the entrance.  I check their progress on filling the supers though and add a super when needed.  I lose a swarm now and then.

Thanks for the discussion Wandering Man.  Yes, you could put the queen and ball of bees in a NUC and add a frame of bees and brood.  You could probably get by with it any time of the year where you live, but not many other places. 

[apisbees]

Would you put the queen and ball of bees on the ground in a nuc?  Or would there be too few bees to start a new hive?

If found soon enough after the failed swarm attempt after a few days they run out of food and the cool nights or rain will take her out.
I have found queens that have not been clipped in the grass with a small ball of bees, whether she hit a tree limb or ran into another bee but once she was on the ground she could not get out of the grass on the ground. She may have cooled down too much and couldn't keep her flight mussels warm enough?

[Wandering Man]

Maybe it's just me, but I am finding that I am letting the swarming thing bother me less and less the longer I keep bees. I used to get really upset or frustrated when I knew I had lost a swarm but not so much anymore. It is part of the bees natural cycle and while I do my best to manage it, in the end it is what they are all about, the entire package as it were. What is lost really? If I catch it my hive count goes up, if I don't it remains the same does it not? Yes, I lose some bees and perhaps some honey production, but on the upside I have a hive that has fulfilled its natural instincts, headed by a young queen going into winter.
I can think of a lot worse things.

While I live in the county, rather than the city, there are several clusters of housing additions nearby, including the one I live in.  I'm worried that if we see an uptick in swarms in the area, followed by bees forming colonies in the nearby homes, I'll have some neighbors pointing their fingers at me.  I plan to do what I can to prevent swarms, but since I've not gone through a year with the bees yet, I don't yet have "Bee Skills."

I don't plan on keeping more than two hives, so I'll be looking for local beeks who might be willing to take any splits I do.