An effective method of swarm control

[Eyeman]

Here is something that has just appeared on some other forums.
Can't quite fathom out how it works.
http://www.mybeeline.co/en/p/effective-method-of-swarm-prevention

 

[Finman]

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I did not understand what heck he is doing.

With same work you can make artificial swarm and bees draw 1-2 boxes foundations in a week.

Clipped wing is very essential in swarm control.

More space does not prevent swarming, if bees' swarming instincts are in condition.

 

[Finman]

He says:

"Beekeeper doesn't notice it until will there are eggs or larvae in queen cells, but it's too late to do anything.".

He does not know artificial smarm method



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[colinc]

Strange system. think he is saying flip BB to top of stack and put a floor in so workers leave and then return to supers where BB was, depleting numbers in the BB as cant get through mesh. They build emergency cells But tear them down when he reverts to normal orientation and reintroduces queen. nothing has been done to stop them swarming a week later......very odd.


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[masterBK]

Not that odd or that new. Snelgrove had elements of this in his method 11.

 

[Finman]

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From text: " That means that the swarming is interrupted and bees gave up on it, returning to their working mood."

another thing is that the queen continues laying."

That is the most important when you do quickly artificial swarm. It takes couple of days that swarming fever disappears.

It is rare that the colony just forgets the swarming. Swarming is the most important task in their life.

 

[mikepetty]

Here is something that has just appeared on some other forums.
Can't quite fathom out how it works.

As masterBK says, this looks like a variation on Selgrove's II method. For a more comprehensible write up, take a look at Wally Shaw's guide at the Welsh Beekeepers Association website.

 

[colinc]

I was commenting on the description here as a "catch all swarm prevention" that is easy to perform. There is no queen removal so no pause in laying and no reduction of colony numbers by frame removal think this step may have been missed from the original description. Seems no better than destroying queen cells that the article states is inadequate.


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[ugcheleuce]

Can't quite fathom out how it works.

That's because the English here is a quick-and-dirty fixed version of a machine translation of the original Croatian article.

 

[REDWOOD]

What ever method you use will involve splitting the colony one way or another. It really depends what you want to get out of it. Queen away in a nuc, split the colony into three nucs. Requeen, split in two and re unite later for honey production. So many options


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[bjosephd]

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More space does not prevent swarming, if bees' swarming instincts are in condition.

Maybe not. But I would argue that not enough space would certainly cause swarming earlier.

...and with many Brits still keeping their queens locked down below a QE in a SINGLE National box, laying space for prolific queens swiftly runs out, how many optimistic supers above the QE, I agree, are not gonna change a thing.

How soon would one of your triple langstroth queens swarm if you kept her in a single National box...? Yesterday I imagine.




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[Finman]

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How soon would one of your triple langstroth queens swarm if you kept her in a single National box...? Yesterday I imagine.

Good question. I have never tried . . Our hives have US standards.

.

 

[bjosephd]

(forgive potentially dodgy googled numbers ... but ya get my drift!)

So if you keep your queen below an excluder in a single National brood, the box contains 50,000 cells.

A Langstroth 61,400 cells.

Finny style Triple Langstroth system 184,200 cells.

If all queens were equal, if I had to bet, my money would be on the National Box queen swarming first.

And yes... eventually... they would all swarm if left to their own devices... and Lady Langstroth III would chuck out an almighty prime swarm!



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[ugcheleuce]

Here is something that has just appeared on some other forums. Can't quite fathom out how it works.
http://www.mybeeline.co/en/p/effective-method-of-swarm-prevention

My guesses so far, based on googling.

1. The "acacia pasture" is likely Robinia pseudoacacia bloom.

2. "Haneman grid" appears to be an Eastern European name for a queen excluder.

3. The description of a bee hive is consistent with the hives in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjBCo40vlG4
In other words, the hive consists of two outer boxes, each with a separate flight entrance. The actual hive bodies (the author calls them "honey supers" and "brood supers") fit exactly inside these outer boxes. A framed queen excluder also fits precisely into the outer box.

With this information in mind, the comment "Brood supers are on the floor, in the box where the queen excluder is located" now makes sense. Also with this in mind, I suspect that the word "frames" in the comment "That wire mesh has frames in the same place where there were frames on a queen excluder" should actually be just "frame" (i.e. you must make sure the grid fits precisely inside the outer box).

So, it would seem:
1. Start with a hive in which the brood nest is at the bottom, with the queen, and the honey supers are on top. Typically there would be a queen excluder between the two sections of the hive.
2. Then, set the queen excluder aside, put the honey supers on the floor, put a mesh on top of it that the bees can't cross, put the brood boxes on top of that, and make sure that the bees can exit the brood boxes (e.g. Snelgrove board, Cloake board, etc, or use an open screen floor).
3. For two days, the forager bees will exit the brood boxes, and fly back to the bottom entrance, which is where the honey boxes are located. The various bees will be forced to do tasks that they would otherwise not be doing.
4. After two days, return the hive to its original state (brood boxes below, queen excluder, honey boxes above).

 

[td4bees]

eff

Here is something that has just appeared on some other forums.
Can't quite fathom out how it works.
http://www.mybeeline.co/en/p/effective-method-of-swarm-prevention

looks like a good way to get your super clogged with pollen.

 

[Finman]

they would all swarm if left to their own devices...

After all those calculations.

May the Force be with you.
.

 

[Eyeman]

Thanks Ugcheleuce for unravelling the mystery.

 

[bjosephd]

looks like a good way to get your super clogged with pollen.

Could you maybe, potentially, put empty supers (or empty brood box) below instead.

And then leave the original supers on top (maybe another QE), or return them after the exercise, or just remove them for extraction.

With a new BB below though you might get some drawn comb and then you can go double brood once you've finished the exercise.

Not that it makes things even more complicated though.

I'm confusing myself now.

 

[ugcheleuce]

Could you maybe, potentially, put empty supers (or empty brood box) below instead. ... And then leave the original supers on top (maybe another QE), or return them after the exercise, or just remove them for extraction.

The way I understand it, the object of the exercise is to force the bees to alter their duties, thereby upsetting their physiology.

I think this would mean that the returning bees have to return to a portion of the hive where there is no brood and where there is [capped] honey in the frames. Also, the bees that remain in the brood box must not be allowed access to large stores of capped honey. Perhaps the bees in the brood box must think that the other bees have swarmed, and the bees in the honey supers must think that they themselves have swarmed.

In other words, all of the bees that are not in the brood portion must be placed at the bottom, and they must be placed in a portion with honey stores. If you want to protect your honey stores against pollen deposits, I suppose you could shake the bees off the various frames into boxes that contain other frames, but then this is no longer a 30 second maneuver.

I'd be happy to hear about other, more experienced beekeepers about the validity of the assumed rationale of this method.

 

[Quis Custodiet]

Did not Simmons have some method of swarm prevention which involved moving supers under broodboxes?