Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[hubertpilon]

Hi,

It is my first warré hive. I live in Canada. My bees swarmed yesterday! There was a lot of room in hive (1 box full, 3 empty).
I'm surprised because it is the first year and so late in summer...

I catched the swarm, put in 2 warré box with floor and temporary roof...

What should I do now? Start a new hive, that late in summer, and should I feed them? Try reuniting the two halves?

If you have time to give me your opinion, it would help me a lot!

Long life to bees!

Hubert

[rmcpb]

I would lean toward recombining them BUT not too soon or they may just swarm again. Let the swarm stay in the temporary box for a few days to a week. Remove any queen cells from the original hive so they are queenless (it is getting too late to raise a queen anyway for you). Do a newspaper combine in six or seven days. When they settle down, another week, go in and arrange stores so they make sense, the bees may not have time to do this before your really cold weather starts and you don't want store split up in your winter.

Hope this helps
Rob.

[hubertpilon]

thank you Rob!

Seems a good idea...

is it possible that the queen in old hive already born?

I see lots of drones in front of hive...

I am trying to avoid taking the frameless combs all out...

do I have to find her or queen cells absolutely or older queen will take over?

[hubertpilon]

Thanks everyone for your opinion...

[ingo50]

Hubert you may wish to join David Heaf's Warre yahoogroup forum, lots of very experienced Warreors who will be able to give good advice too.