I've just finished checking all my hives for the first time this year. I was beating myself up for being a bad beekeeper because there are reports of swarms all over town and I hadn't checked my own bees- they could have been the ones swarming.
Turns out my instincts to wait were right on because I only had 2 hives that had swarm cells. These 2 hives I split into 4 hives total to try and keep half the bees from leaving with the old queen to find a new home (swarm).
The technique I have found to be the easiest for me is to put the old queen, 2 bars of honey and 2 bars of capped brood into a new hive and then move it away from the original hive that still has the swarm cells. I also like to close up the entrance to the new hive with the old queen to just a couple of bee widths to prevent robbing.
I plan to check on the hives with queen cells in 2 weeks to see if the new queen has emerged. At this point she will have a body like a cross between a drone and a worker bee and she is also SUPER fast! Only after the virgin queen goes out to mate, does she get the body associated with queen bees.
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| Blossoms |
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| Drone Brood |
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| Queen Cells with Larvae |
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| peek a boo |
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