Swarm led by a virgin queen (or how one colony becomes five).
The first beekeeping story by Zachary Huang

My 3 colonies in my backyard became on in March, the other 2 died (one died
around Feb). The one remaining was particularly strong when I checked in
early May. Because on May 9th I had to go to Hastings, MI to show bees to
about 375 students, so I removed 2 frames with sealed brood, shook some
bees, put them into a separate box, and introduced a new queen to them
(caged) on May 6th.   The new queen came from one of the 40 nucs I bought,
three of them by accident had free queens in them and two caged queens died.
This one was a survivor (despite her colony had another free running queen). 

I separated the original box (2 medium, 1 deep) into two since they had like
8 frames of sealed brood (one deep and one medium).  This was my way of
swarm control.  One (A) had a deep (and I introduced a mitezapper for them
to build up wax on the drone comb, bees almost finished one side today),
another (B) had 2 mediums. I made sure both sides had eggs and larvae (so
either of them can build emergency queen cells) and did not look for the old
queen.  So this colony became three since the observation hive (C) was later
given to the bug house at MSU.  

It has been unusually cold in MI this spring. It feels like March/April the
last few weeks and it finally warmed up to 70s the last couple days.  Larry,
my retired neighbor came knocking at my door around 11 am and told me a
colony was swarming…I thought that was not possible! (I just made a
three-way split 3 weeks ago!).  I went out and indeed saw thousands of bees
flying in air (they seem to have come out of colony B). We saw them before
they have settled yet. Two of us standing among the flying bees and talking
and bees just ignored us (wish I had my camera and asked someone else to
shoot us pics). We watched until they finally settled on a tree branch near
a pile of trees he pruned.  Slowly bees clustered after about 30 min. I
brought a hivebody and shook the bees to the frames, but they clustered
outside and refused to go in. I played with the bees with my bare hands
showing Larry how gentle they are when they are swarming.  Then I saw the
queen (she was outside among the pile of bees I grabbed). She looked like a
virgin! I remarked. Larry joked “do you want me to do anything to her?” Ron,
Larry’s friend was laughing wildly at 20 ft away. He honked at Larry’s
driveway and Larry took him to the bees about 5 min before that.  He said he
was allergic to bees because he was stung by a “bee” on the golf course once
and refused to be close, even after I showed him my bees were totally gentle
by scooping with my hands, without a veil.

I told Larry I would be back and check my A and B hives. I went home, had
lunch (my daughter and wife had cooked spaghetti together), then asked him
to watch me. Larry had been “having” bees at his farm for a few years but
has not even seen the queen once.  He does not spend a lot of time with his
bees (me neither, but I at least check mine a couple of times a year).  He
said he would join me in a few minutes after he had his veil.  I waited for
20 min and he was not showing up. So I started shooting some flowers in my
back yard (with my Nikon D80).  Irises, strawberries (3-4 with red flowers.
Most were white, no bees). Then I was shooting near the maple tree. I do not
know what kind of maple it is, but it is in full bloom today, at least 2
weeks after others are done.  Low and behold, honey bees! I got excited and
started shooting. Just this spring I complained to people in my lab that I
know bees use maple flowers, but why I have never seen bees on them? I even
brought my camera to the campus a few times, search for bees on maples. I
did see many solitary bees flying up high, but did not notice honey bees. 
Today there were about 6-9 bees on the tree, most of them high but the tree
is only 10 ft tall. So I did manage to get a few shots. 

Larry finally showed up. I said I would check hive A first. I thought it had
no queen since hive B was way more active the last 2 weeks.  I saw 3 solid
frames of sealed brood and a few uncapped larvae. I told Larry the queen
must be here in hive A. I said hive B swarmed with a virgin!  Then Larry saw
the original queen (pretty good eyes for a 70 year old guy, and only 1 hr
ago he was showing a virgin queen, for the first time in his life).  I said
I wanted to clip her so she won’t swarm away. Larry hopped back to his house
(one of his knees has been messed up last few days), and brought about a
“small” pair of scissors. It looked pretty big to me. I clipped her and said
I was thinking give him some bees to start up his dead colonies (since he
noticed my swarm).  But I said I had to make sure hive B has enough queen
cells.  The first frame I took out had like 9 cells, with 3 of them emerged
and then we saw another virgin running around. I was wondering why the first
queen did not destroy other cells, then remembered the first virgin probably
swarmed away with the bees (about 10,000 workers, which became colony D).  I
put that first frame with many cells to hive A (after putting the virgin
back to hive B) since the old queen will be giving away to Larry (colony D).
 A 2nd frame, 2 more cells. I used my hive tool to open the cells to see the
status of the queens, queens were eclosed inside but showed no signs of
chewing out! As I went to more frames, we popped like 6 queen cells, all
queens ran out quickly, except one had a dead worker with her head pointing
in the wrong way so she died because sh could not get out (well, the cell
should be big enough for her to turn around? It was her own cocoon so she
should be able to chew out? Why not? I wondered).  I wanted to take a photo
since I have seen this before but no photo to “prove” myself.  I have my
camera next to me, but the worker must have rolled away and we could not
find er.  I took a few photos of those virgins (some here being chased by
workers).  Wondering how the workers would “decide” to swarm with the first
virgin…they did not really plan it ahead since there was no cells when I
made the three way split on May 6th. All these cells are clearly emergency
cells I saw today (18 days since the spit).  Because hive B has so many
virgins (I did not kill a single one, thinking maybe nature can do a better
job), I transferred 2 virgins to colony A and they seem to be accepted.  

It makes me wonder if the queens are all staying inside cells because there
was some communication from the two-also virgins that emerged…(were they
planning to have an afterswarm? The colony did not seem particular strong,
or crowded after the first swarm).  Or was it merely coincidence that the
queens just all hatched and not having time yet to chew out? I bet the 6
also cells also had queens eclosed inside the cells, but I did not go back
and check.

Larry went back, got his deep hive body (full of honey) and I gave two deep
frames, both with capped brood and bees, the clipped old queen and then
shook more bees into the “nuc”. I said 2 weeks ago I paid $50 for 3 frames
of bees and a queen and this one I am giving you is about the same strength.
He said “Zach, I will reimburse you then.” I said no, you “caught” my swarm
so I am giving you this as a reward.  I would be less work for me to give
him my newly caught swarm…But perhaps subconsciously I wanted to keep an eye
on it since it has a virgin (she could get eaten by birds during a mating
flight) so I did not give it to him? I was not really thinking when I made
the decision. 

So not bad, I lost 2 out of 3, and now one has becoming five (A, B, C the
observation hive, D the swarm today, and E the new nuc I gave to Larry).  I
have one more box to fill in my backyard.  Hopefully I can make another
split some day and hopefully most of them will be making through the winter.
I do not try to make honey from these bees, except the occasional chance to
show off my guests by harvesting a frame or two newly capped honey and we
use spoons to eat the “comb” honey from it. 

And I did not even get stung today.  

Zach, 2:20 pm May 24, 2008. 
 
Zachary Huang, Beetographer
http://www.beetography.com

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