Combining after an Artificial swarm

[hexadecimal]

Thinking ahead and how I could improve this coming season, I was looking at the AS’s I carried out last year and the time I left them before recombining.

So my question is after an AS if you were to recombine, how long would you leave it before doing so?

Would you let them fully raise the new queen? Continue as a new colony for a month or two then look at combining.

Possibly tear down all QC’s so that they become hopelessly Q- and then look to recombine at that point?

Other methods?

There is no desire to permanently increase numbers, obviously selling/donating the surplus bees/queen is an option and is what happened last year.

I guess this is just seeing how some of the old hats would go about satisfying the swarming instinct via an AS and then get them back together as soon as possible to be a strong production colony.

Cheers all

Hex

 

[JEP]

There are thousands of variations of how you can manage hives that build swarm cells so I'm not going to go into too much detail with regards that.

Generally if you don't want more colonies you would be best combining as soon as you are either satisfied that the new queen is a good one (killing the old one). Or as soon as you are certain that the new queen is poor, has died, or failed to mate, in which case obviously you keep the old queen.

There are lots of variations of artificial swarm techniques as well as alternatives such as the Demaree method or techniques that prevent a band of capped honey forming above the broodnest. Use of these kinds of method often reduce the need for an artificial swarm in the first place.

 

[Eyeman]

There are thousands of variations of how you can manage hives that build swarm cells so I'm not going to go into too much detail with regards that.

Generally if you don't want more colonies you would be best combining as soon as you are either satisfied that the new queen is a good one (killing the old one). Or as soon as you are certain that the new queen is poor, has died, or failed to mate, in which case obviously you keep the old queen.

There are lots of variations of artificial swarm techniques as well as alternatives such as the Demaree method or techniques that prevent a band of capped honey forming above the broodnest. Use of these kinds of method often reduce the need for an artificial swarm in the first place.

Download Wally Shaw's an Apioary guide to swarm control for more details.

 

[Bryang]

Take a look at Jenkinsbrynmair post using his modified Demarree method...Worked well for me last year..

 

[enrico]

More money in selling bees than honey!

 

[Eyeman]

More money in selling bees than honey!

Also much more fun and exciting. Glad I left all that behind getting bogged down chasing more and more honey.

 

[hexadecimal]

Cheers all, should of probably said what style of AS i used last year (Pagden).

I may well try the Demaree method this year to keep it all on one site and see how that pans out for me.