how far does a swarm go.

[Poly Hive]

fairy nuff about the supercedure. PH do you requeen yours? and if so what timescale? or do you leave them to supercede when ever they want and replace truant queens? Do you find that they wait till autum in year 3 to supercede or is it fairly random?

That happy situation was when I was running Craibstone. I then lost the AMM strain due to life and circumstances.

I have now invested in Greek bred AMM so we will see.

If any Scots on here have AMM PLEASE get in touch, distance no object, in fact the further north the better.

PH

 

[Hivemaker.]

my queens are curently clipped but i hope that their daughters will not be clipped. cant help thinkin that if she wasnt ment to fly why does she have wings? + i reckon it can lead to unnessary supercedure. that said my first swarm was caught because of a cliped queen walkin around infront of the hive so i definatly apreciate the use of clipping.

I have not found that clipping leads to supercedure at all,if done properly.....and i have always clipped all of my queens in production colonys.Have you found a large proportion of your queens being superceded shortly after clipping?

 

[Poly Hive]

Like I said Hivemaker another legend.

PH

 

[Hivemaker.]

Like I said Hivemaker another legend.

PH

Aye,and one most likely invented and perpetuated by those who cannot even find the queens in the first place,let alone be able to clip them properly.

 

[newportbuzz]

i havnt had any of my queens to have them superceded this is my first year. so i am still forming opinions and figuring out how i would like to run my hives. sorry if i came acros as stating facts twas just opinions backed by other opinions no backbone to them at all. however i am still interested in when your queens would normaly supercede season wise?

 

[Poly Hive]

2nd year or third.

However to know when it happens you have to have your queens marked and clipped aye?

Longest one I know of lasted 15 months. And that was on a Bee Farm and BOTH were marked and clipped so the year was known for sure.

PH

 

[ainsie]

Aye,and one most likely invented and perpetuated by those who cannot even find the queens in the first place,let alone be able to clip them properly.

Hi Hivemaker, just wondered if you could elaborate on what you mean by clipping properly or put another way what is your method.Many thanks Ainsie.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Hi Hivemaker, just wondered if you could elaborate on what you mean by clipping properly or put another way what is your method.Many thanks Ainsie.

yes,clipping properly,just removing a third of the tip of one wing,as opposed to cutting one entire wing off,or even as i have seen in the past from others efforts of cutting both wings of completely down to the stumps,and including the odd leg or to in the process,then comming up with the words of wisdom that clipping is bad and causes supercedure.

Happy xmas John.

 

[Poly Hive]

Ah yes the leg....

When a queen is about to be clipped, and as she feels the scissors sliding over her wing she often lifts a leg to brush away the sensation.

PAUSE before using the scissors. Give her time to take the leg away.

Saves a definite supercedure and moaning about clipping.

And that little snippet just saved you the cost of a bonny queen....

PH

 

[RoofTops]

Newportbuzz, its seems from your words above that you might be under the impression supercedure is normal and almost common. This is not my experience with my bees. I mark all my queens and usually clip them as well so if supercedure happens I will know about it but I know of only one case of supercedure in the past 4 years in my bees and that was with a 2 year old queen. Others experience may differ as some bees seem to supercede more often and as it is believed to be a trait which can be inherited the beekeeper should be able to encourage supercedure by selecting for it.

What I am suggesting is don't assume the queen will be automatically superceded. The odds are they will simply try and swarm in the time honoured fashion.

 

[Poly Hive]

Yes Supercedure is far more common in AMM than some other strains.

Mind did it to some 60% of the time and the others swarmed, or rather tried to...

PH

 

[newportbuzz]

Newportbuzz, its seems from your words above that you might be under the impression supercedure is normal and almost common. This is not my experience with my bees. I mark all my queens and usually clip them as well so if supercedure happens I will know about it but I know of only one case of supercedure in the past 4 years in my bees and that was with a 2 year old queen. Others experience may differ as some bees seem to supercede more often and as it is believed to be a trait which can be inherited the beekeeper should be able to encourage supercedure by selecting for it.

What I am suggesting is don't assume the queen will be automatically superceded. The odds are they will simply try and swarm in the time honoured fashion.

hi rooftops
I dont think they will automaticly supercede but i was led to beleive from the teachers in the gromanstown course that supercedure was more likely on damaged queens(this is also mentioned in a few of the books i have read ). To my mind a half missing wing constitutes damage. I know this is a dodgy opinion.
I just really wanted to know how far my swarms were likely to go as i hope to be able to run my hives with out clipping.(i will still mark my queens and keep records and use diferent colours for each year).
anyway hope i didnt ruffle any feathers
as i have mentioned this is my first year so i can only really go on what i have learnt

 

[Poly Hive]

If you want to run your colonies with out clipping then that is your choice.

As for clipping if done correctly then it is fine (like most things in life)

Far be it from me to disagree with what you learnt in Gormanston, such an august centre of learning. However as you will discover there is at times a lack of balance or even a touch of inbalance in any lecture. The trick is to spot it.
However that comes with more experience.

As for how far are you going to have to run to catch this swarm? Frankly and being totally honest I ain't a clue. One will go three yards, hang up and cluster for you bonny as you like. the next will take to the air, swirl a couple of time and wheeeeeeeee............over the horizon and gone for ever.

Me thinks that some serious swarm control ideas might be usefully studied this winter.

PH

 

[Skyhook]

Why would a colony accept into a Q+ situation? Never in my experience.

PH

I may have misunderstood, but I'm sure there was a mention in 'Honey by the ton' of a method being used by New Zealand bee farmers of putting ripe queen cells into queen right hives as an alternative to requeening. Has anyone come across this, or was it an experiment?

 

[Poly Hive]

I think if you check this is a common method of dealing with splits in warmer climes, namely the States, NZ and Aus.

The colonies are split in two whether swarming or not. Queen cells are given to ALL so the Q+ ones will tear down the cell and the Q- ones will accept it.

As Hamish used to say, "There's aye a bit of rochness on a big place."

PH

 

[Hivemaker.]

As PH states,its a method used mainly in Aus/USA....but used to re-queen queenright hives, with a protected ripe cell,no need to find the old queen and remove,a kind of induced supercedure.
Plenty of threads about doing this on beesource,and below is a link with a bit about it from Dave Cusmans site.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/inducedsupersedure.html

 

[RoofTops]

NPB - I understand now and yes, the general view is the bees are more likely to supercede if the queen is damaged, althugh I wouldn't rely on it. I have heard of people deliberately damaging a queen (lopping off a foot) in order to encourage supercedure. However, the bees don't seem to worry if she is missing part of a wing and the reason for cutting off only part of one wing is it unbalances the queen so she can't fly very far - or rather she flies in lots of small circles in a downward spiral. Cut off both wings the same length and there is a risk she might manage to fly in a straight line with some strenuous flapping.

The old skep* beekeepers used to encourage swarming in order to make increase but depending where you live throwing off swarms and hoping to catch them might create problems with the neibours and swarmed colonies don't make a huge amount of honey. If you don't want to clip the queens best to polish up swarm control measures instead but clipping queens is an art worth developing as I think it will give you much more confidence with the bees. Practice on drones to begin with - they can't sting and it doesn't matter too much (other than to the drone itself) if you mess up. Just make sure you use a different colour to the one you are going to use on the queen.

Don't worry about ruffling feathers here - some of the contributors have hides of leather and you'll soon develop a similar skin!

* and some present day Natural beekeepers.

 

[newportbuzz]

The old skep* beekeepers used to encourage swarming in order to make increase but depending where you live throwing off swarms and hoping to catch them might create problems with the neibours and swarmed colonies don't make a huge amount of honey.

For the next year i will be mainly concentrating on increase. with regards annoyin the neighbours, the nearest is 1/2 miles away. So that shouldnt be much of a problem. Plus they like honey. Bait hives will be belt and braces for my swarm control not my only control. (aiming to split hives for increase as soon as they are large enough to take it.)
I will have to try marking and clipping on a few drones as i am sure i am not half skillfull enough at clipping and marking and it does have its uses.
(theres no harm knowing how far to place your bait hives from a swarm doner anyway.)