Reducing Swarm Tendencies

[For want of a better word]

Engineering bees not to swarm? What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing....

Natural selection ... the Native Northern Honeybee seems to be far less "swarmy" than the Mediterranean imports and their hybridised variants, the African sub-sahara varieties apparently are so swarmy that the beekeepers there don't even worry about the habit !
Tis in their genes!!!

Yeghes da

 

[Finman]

Nothing....

Natural selection ... the Native Northern Honeybee seems to be far less "swarmy" than the Mediterranean imports and their hybridised variants, the African sub-sahara varieties apparently are so swarmy that the beekeepers there don't even worry about the habit !
Tis in their genes!!!

Yeghes da

That is a myth, and there is no fact behind it. Black bee makes 2 swarm a year. Simple reason is that when cavity is full of bees, it swarms. In kerbs colony had no other possibity than swarm.

Less swarmy is same as less vigorous. Swarming - to produce offsprings.

Mediterranean imports have been selected to be less swarmy. That is why Italian bee is most popular in the world.

Another popular bee Carniolan is more swarmy than Italian. In Carniolan home countries they use quite small hives.

 

[Finman]

, the African sub-sahara varieties apparently are so swarmy that the beekeepers there don't even worry about the habit !
Tis in their genes!!!

Yeghes da

Northern Black is nearer to African races than Italian bee. There are about 15 bee races in Africa Apis mellifera something.

 

[alldigging]

Pre-emptive swarm control – splitting the colony before any queen cells are produced (eg. Snelgrove`s Method I,
described in Part 2) comes next. If this operation is carefully timed in relation to anticipated nectar flows and the quantitative
balance of the split is nicely adjusted*, there will be little loss honey production. There can even be a slight increase if the
split is made early in the season and results in two fully functioning colonies by the time of the main flow. Pre-emptive splitting is
certainly a good option for bees that are to be taken to the heather or have access to some other late nectar flow. Uniting the
splits can be used to produce a large colony with lots of brood and headed by a young queen in anticipation of the flow.


From page 9 of http://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The-Many-Uses-Of-A-Snelgrove-Board-by-Wally-Shaw.pdf

 

[Finman]

Engineering bees not to swarm? What could possibly go wrong?

It has been done by countless beebreeders. It means that you have 100 hives and perhaps 10 start to make queen cells. Yes, I know several guys who has such bees. Breeding such stock and keeping them as such need hard continuous work.

 

[Finman]

error

 

[Finman]

Pre-emptive swarm control – splitting the colony before any queen cells are produced (eg. Snelgrove`s Method I,
described in Part 2) comes next. If this operation is carefully timed in relation to anticipated nectar flows and the quantitative
balance of the split is nicely adjusted*, there will be little loss honey production. url]

It depends what time of summer is your main yield.

If you split your hives early (with foreign queens), hive starts again build up and it takes 2 months that it is capable to forage normal yield.

Normal yield. ....is it 15 kg or 60 kg?

 

[thorn]

Some bees are more swarmy than others. The first lot I had just kept swarming. My bee buddy and I did everything suggested on this forum and elsewhere, but they kept on going. Our artificial swarms meant we had four colonies all bearing the same genes, and none of which produced enough honey for us to take. Every autumn we amalgamated colonies to ensure they were strong enough to overwinter. The next season, they would start swarming again, despite our renewed efforts. We thought it was all down to our bad beekeeping.
In 2013 we bought a new colony. We did an artificial swarm in 2014. Both lots of the new bees prospered, and we had a very good crop from them. In the meantime the original lot kept on swarming, and again gave us no honey.
We requeened the offending lot. The swarming stopped.
A beekeeper in the allotment down the road is delighted. Last summer two swarms ended up in his spare hives. I wonder where they came from (and whether they'll stay). I'll not be putting out any bait hives, that's for sure.