Swarm Question

[Ray Bayless]

Simply put, Will a hive swarm leaving a virgin queen? With a swarm at this time are there enough drones to mate with?

[sawdstmakr]

Here in Florida they sometimes swarm any time of the year. I got a swarm last November. They moved into a squirrel box.
My OB hive just produced a large number of drones, hatched about 7 days ago. I can see at least 25 of them and there is prob twice that much in the hive with only 2 frames full of bees in the hive. It has 2 deeps and 6 medium frames, side by side so i only see the outside of the frames. 6 weeks ago I doubled the size of the OB hive and left 1 deep frame full of brood with 2 Q cells and added 1 deep foundation and 6 medium foundation frames. I was surprised to see the drones at all this year. i think the only thing keeping my other hives from swarming is that the flow isn't that strong and I keep adding supers as the get over crowded. What is you flow like?
Jim

[T Beek]

Answer to Q 1.  Yes, a virgin queen is left behind when a colony swarms, or more likely a queen cell (or several).

Answer to Q 2.  Only you would know    (My drones were kicked out a couple weeks ago), it seems unlikely, but what do I know about Florida beekeeping?  Not too much  .

t

[Ray Bayless]

I open up the hive. No queen but 3 Queen cells. The hive still had a lot of bees. I decided to take 1 queen cell and create a nuc. I added another nuc body and 5 frames with foundation. There seems to still be plenty of drones. I am feeding 1 to 1 syrup with a splash of HBH. If these two hives act like the parent did they should build up pretty quick. I don't believe there's any flow now so I'll have to feed them heavily. I think I'm gonna try to open feed some pollen substitute. I'm going to try to finely grind some brewers yeast and mix in some mega bee. I'm pretty new at this, being my first year and all, so if my plans sound foolish please let me know what you think. Thanks again for all the help guys.

Ray