Artificial Swarms

[Teemore]

Long post ahead….

I spent Monday night in a lecture on swarm control but came away from it thinking that the lecturer got it wrong with respect to some of his assertions. This is an octogenarian beekeeper who has kept bees for most of his life and is well thought of. I'll not outline what a full artificial swarm involves as it is well covered elsewhere, especially on Dave Cushman's site.

The lecturer indicated that once the queen has been separated from the brood (or at least most of it) and placed in a new brood box with foundation etc located a few feet to one side of the original hive, there is no requirement to reduce the number of Q cells in the original colony, mentioning that there could be 10 or more Q cells. He stated that the first queen to hatch will just kill off all the other queens and they will NOT swarm. He then went on to explain that a few days after making the artificial swarm the number of foraging bees in the colonies can be balanced by swapping the positions of the two hives.

One of the other beekeepers queried these assertions, pointing out that if left to their own devices, bees will reach a point where they decide to swarm and if circumstances are right, they will issue a cast or casts. He made the point that if you fail to reduce the number of Q cells to two or so, you run the risk that the daughter colony will issue a cast or casts headed by virgin queens. He also said it was a myth that the first Queen to hatch will kill the other queens, again highlighting casts. The lecturer and one other strongly disagreed with this suggestion categorically stating that they could not and would not issue swarms/casts headed by virgin Queens as there were insufficient flying bees in the daughter colony for that to happen i.e. their method of artificial swarm is fool proof as a means of swarm control. They were adamant that the first queen to hatch will kill the other queens. Due to the 'strong' reaction the questioning beekeeper let the point drop.

Now, first off I doubt that the colony would allow the first hatched Q to kill off the others – it might happen if there in some instances but not all. I am particularly mindful of a recent article I read about an observation hive where the colony kept the ‘surplus’ Qs penned up in their cells until the first hatched Queen was successfully mated – the colony controlled what happened. I also see a huge hole in their contention that the daughter colony will not swarm because of a lack of flying bees. They chose to ignore the fact that the lecturer recommended 'balancing' the hives a few days after commencing the artificial swarm. This gives the bees a boost of foragers and increases colony numbers. To my mind this gives the daughter colony the numbers they said were needed to let them swarm: am I wrong?

Personally my inclination would be to make up a couple of Nucs with Q cells if the colony is strong enough or to reduce the number of Q cells down to 2 (heir and a spare…)

I have read a bit about temporal polyethism/temporal castes in honeybees and from the associated research it is argued that the role of bees changes depending on the needs of the colony e.g. if they need more foragers, house bees will be pushed outdoors a bit earlier than usual and foragers ‘regress’ back into house bees and reactivate their wax glands in preparation for swarming. By my thinking, the daughter colony will always have sufficient bees to allow it to issue a swarm headed by a virgin queen and potentially also issue casts – especially if the colonies have been balanced. I have seen enough pictures of small casts to know that bees will swarm/issue casts with very small numbers of bees so they could well decide to swarm with relatively few flying/foraging bees present in the hive.

Since I am a relatively new beekeeper and entering my first full year of beekeeping (and because of politics...) I didn't want to point out what I feel were inexactitudes.... That brings me to the font of knowledge that is this forum: is my thinking sound? Comments please!!

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Await to see what the more knowledgeable have to say about queen genocide, but a quick question -

The lecturer indicated that once the queen has been separated from the brood (or at least most of it) and placed in a new brood box with foundation etc located a few feet to one side of the original hive

shouldnt it be the other way around - the new hive with queen is sited where the original was, to allow foragers to return to it, and the original (now q-) hive placed a few feet to one side.

Probably a typo (or I've misunderstood) but didnt want to confuse (further) new beeks

 

[oliver90owner]

The whole idea of the A/S instructions, where the queen cell colony is moved to the other side (not swapped positions) of the original position is to minimise the number of flying bees in that box. There should only be one day's worth of foraging bees to go with any potential cast, by the time the queen emerges. Nothing to do with balancing anything. Even so, that may not prevent cast swarms issuing if the colony is big enough, the weather is conducive, etc.

Not surprised those assertions were questioned.

RAB

 

[itchyhives]

I am inclined to agree with you Tee although my knowledge is also limited. Your right also on the bees keeping queens in their cups if needed and I'm sure many will have experienced this when they have opened up the hive and to find an emerging queen as opening the hive has allowed HM freedom from the workers keeping her in.

Also went to talk where a guy was showing a video of his observation hive, several queens had emerged and the workers were keeping them apart by shepherding. From my understanding its the workers the decides on what happens not so much the queens. It can also be the workers that kill the queens if they feel she's not up to scratch. If the first queen out kills all the others none of us would be having any problems other than a primary swarm! I'm sure there will be some that disagree but that is my understanding.

 

[rae]

I think your questioning bee keeper was right - but it depends on the sizes of the colony.

Last spring, one of our colonies was a monster. The queen had laid up a national brood, so we gave her a 14x12 of foundation and that was drawn and laid up in a week. About three weeks after that, we had queen cells. Lots of queen cells.

So we AS'd, with all of the flying bees on the original site (one frame of brood to keep them at home) and split the Nat and 14x12 into two colonies, with a pretty even distribution of queen cells, about 8 in each.

The two colonies with queen cells issued several casts (which were mostly caught) until they were sorted through pretty assertively to eliminate all of the remaining queen cells. It is worth remembering that these were both big colonies in their own right, so they were quickly able to ramp up the number of flying bees.

This year, we are going to split the queen cells over a number of nucs, which should prevent them from assembling enough flying bees to create a cast.

 

[nottingham]

there is no requirement to reduce the number of Q cells in the original colony, mentioning that there could be 10 or more Q cells. He stated that the first queen to hatch will just kill off all the other queens and they will NOT swarm. He then went on to explain that a few days after making the artificial swarm the number of foraging bees in the colonies can be balanced by swapping the positions of the two hives.

One of the other beekeepers queried these assertions, pointing out that if left to their own devices, bees will reach a point where they decide to swarm and if circumstances are right, they will issue a cast or casts. He made the point that if you fail to reduce the number of Q cells to two or so, you run the risk that the daughter colony will issue a cast or casts headed by virgin queens. He also said it was a myth that the first Queen to hatch will kill the other queens.

It might be me but it seems that once he was challenged, he seemed to of changed his mind about his teaching of swarm control.

 

[Mike101]

My experience is that if you artificially swarm the bees because thay have already started building swarm cells then the "Queenless" hive will have cast swarms as each new queen hatches. Unless you destroy all but one known good cell (some people leave two cells as an insurance but still run the risk of a cast) or move the hive at the right time to deplete it of flying bees so they feel unable to swarm.

If you artificially swarm the bees before they are building swarm cells then the "Queenless" hive will make QC's under the emergency impulse, I am told that in this condition the bees will select the best QC themselves and destroy the rest in good time.

Third option - the bees do somthing else entirely!!

 

[Ceph]

I think you have some very good observations and it sounds like the lecturer does not have a totally fool proof system unless I am missing something. But what do I know I am a beginner also!

Did he mention if the young bees that make it into the artificial swarm box ever make queen cells, or is the swarm instict totally lost on removal from the original hive?

 

[Teemore]

Ceph - he didn't mention whether that instinct remains with the young bees that go into the artificial swarm box but i was chatting with a couple of beekeepers over coffee in the interval and a couple of them commented about either having Q cells appear in the A/S box and in one instance a chap had bees swarm with no Q cells present in the A/S box. Different beekeepers have different experiences....

 

[Teemore]

Nottingham, it was the beekeeper who questioned the lecturer that suggested that you reduce the number of QCs. He saw people getting ready to unquestioningly back up the lecturer and I guess thought the better of pursuing the argument. I don't think the lecturer would have chnaged his mind on the night but if questioned about it in a week or two he might give a more thoughtful response.

 

[Teemore]

Ta all for the comments!

Probably a typo (or I've misunderstood) but didnt want to confuse (further) new beeks

RAB/Monsieur Abeille - I'll hold my hands up to not reading through my post before submitting it......

The lecturer was clear that it was the "Queen Cell" colony moved off to one side and I should have caught on to my error before posting! Apologies for causing confusion!

I can understand that moving the Queen Cell colony off to one side does reduce the number of flying bees, he was very clear about swapping the location of the two hives after a couple of days to balance the number of flying bees between the two colonies. As you say RAB, this might mean that there is only a day's worth of flying bees present to join a swarm/cast swarm (or not as the case may be!). Ta for confirming that moving the Queen Cell hive only serves to minimise the risk of a swarm/cast issuing.

I only wish all of the advice given by the lecturer was as clear as that found on this forum.

 

[djg]

Teemore,

Not the same as your AS, but similar: faced with the question of whether to reduce the number of QCs from a test frame from a reliable queen which I had inserted into a Q- hive last year, I decided to let the bees decide. The alternative was to reduce 8 QCs to a riskier single QC.

A swarm and at least one cast later, I wished that I had decided to intervene more decisively.

I re-took the swarm (my first!) to a motley audience in the local park and waved goodbye to the cast, 40 feet up on a tree-bough. But I did enjoy the piping, though! And the colony has built up nicely this Spring, after producing no surplus honey last year. So not all is lost....

Next time, I'll see whether my efforts at investiture have any better results!