Lost a swarm? In sept

marizpan

I checked my hives today. I was surprised by one hive to find an unmarked queen, 2-3 day old eggs in cells, multiple opened queen cells at the base of a frame. There is capped brood, a small amount of larvae and plenty of eggs. I marked the queen and I assume I lost a swarm as the original was marked. They have a double box but I added a super as they have very little space and have brought in serious amounts if honey in the last two weeks.
The next hive I have,I left a super on that was untouched all season. They were slow to get going but when I checked today they where capping six frames of honey and filling out the rest!
I have three nucs in six frame poly nucs that I was hoping to over winter.
Two are recently requeened and only started to lay in the last two weeks. The weight has doubled in the last week. The other nuc has a queen from last year but I had being using this hive to rear qc. They struggled when I had them in a full hive so I moved them to a polynuc, but now I doubt they have enough space. Is it too late to move them?

I don't know what to do now! Do I try and move them to full hives or will I drown them with space to heat? I don't want them to swarm but I want them to have space to rear brood for winter. So what do I do? Will I remove honey frames and put in empty frames? I can always give back the frames in spring if they need them?
How can I tell if they working heather or ivy? We have both in the area. The hives smell very strong of fragrance honey when you're within three metres of them.

giraffegoat

You have got a lot going on that you have not sorted in your mind.

1) Its possible for bees to swarm at any time provided the conditions are right. Normally at this time of the year they tend to be swarms connected to what would be generally referred too as the supercedure process. From your description of what you have seen the colony appears to be undergoing a supercedure process without swarming, the one key indicator is you do not appear to have had a loss of honey from your supers!
2) My advise would be not to interfere with queens in anyway whatsoever at this time of year as you are more likely to loose them, by the bees balling them. The chances of replacing such queens from now to the arrival of Winter are very unlikely!
3) The Nuclei you speak of appear to be a mix of new and old queens, any that are stuck for space should be moved into large hives ASAP.
4) This whole space and heat issue keeps coming up amongst beekeepers and I am at a loss to understand it. I have taken colonies out of enough roofs, trees, packing boxes/box crates used for potatoes etc. to understand that its not cold that kills or injures bees. In fact they need it, its wired into the life cycle of bees in this part of the world. The question you need to ask yourself is, is the colony big enough, disease free (and Varroa under control) with enough food and in a sturdy dry hive to survive?
5) I am currently taking out a frame or two of the outside frames in the brood area and replacing them with drawn comb as the ivy flow has started and my Langstroth brood nests are already full of honey, for the really strong hives I am putting on another box/super.
6) If the smell from the hive is 'fragrant' it is unlikely to be Ivy honey you are smelling, in my experience Ivy honey smells as bad as it tastes, but some people like it!
7) I get the impression you are raising QCs in Poly Nuclei, do you think that is wise?

marizpan

Thanks Giraffegoat,

The hive with a presumed swarm or supercedure isn't a nuc. It is a double brood box with an additional super. I was going to leave them to it anyway but I'm glad to think that they might not have swarmed at all.

The nuc with an older queen, I will take your advise and move back into a full hive. I don't use polynucs for queen cell rearing. She was in a full hive but slowed down laying and they were not able to cover the brood so I confined the colony space-wise to help boost it. I will move them tomorrow as they are very strong again. I was worried about moving them so late in the season.

The other two nuc's I will over winter in the poly nuc as the queens are young and I don't expect them to build up so much.

Thanks again