Reverse Artificial Swarm

[Davea]

What's wrong or right about doing an a reverse artificial swarm?
i.e Take the queen,a couple of frames of brood and bees and put in a new box in new position. A swarm cell,remaining brood and bees stay on the original box and position.
Queen has been severely weakened, all the flying bees go back to the original site, she can't swarm
The old brood box has all the flying bees with remainder of the existing brood awaiting a new queen.

I'm sure your replies will be interesting and diverse.

Dave

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That kind of thing is done a lot around here - queen and a couple of frames of brood are put in a nuc with a pile of workers and taken away (preferably over 3 miles but failing that just stuff a load of grass in the entrance), then the original hive left in situ with lone QC remaining. Then you can either re-queen the nuc, combine back at the end of the season or make increase

 

[Tom Bick]

Some people do this and it works for them.

You have to be 100% confident you have only left one QC with the original hive and re check for new QC’s 4-5 day’s later.

The problem is it does not always suppress the bees swarming instinct and once they have raised a new queen they can try again to swarm.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That's the thing - they probably wanted to swarm originally as the hive had reached saturation point - the new queen will have inherited a colony which is again full to bursting in short order so job done, time to swarm

 

[Poly Hive]

Err re-read the OP

It's what I do.

I put the queen into a nuc with a couple of frames of brood and thus create a new nuc. Goes off to a fresh site in the apiary.

The old colony which is full of swarmy bees is cooled down by leaving one open cell only.

Works very well for me but....................you have to be able to queen find.

PH

 

[sputnam]

I do the same and quite often split the patent colony into nucs with one QC each at the same time.
I leave the new nucs on the site of the parent colony.
Works very well as long as you ensure that there's enough bees in each nuc.

 

[Mike a]

My preferred option is to always move the queen. I then shake in enough frames of bees to cover 3-4 frames after a few days when most of the older bees have returned to the parent hive. This simulates the colony has swarmed and both settle down quickly afterwards.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Err re-read the OP

PH

I diid and agreed it was a valid method, but i also concurred with Tom Bick's caution that they may swarm again:

The problem is it does not always suppress the bees swarming instinct and once they have raised a new queen they can try again to swarm.

Seen it happen

 

[Poly Hive]

Sorry misread over lunch.

PH

 

[Finman]

What's wrong or right about doing an a reverse artificial swarm?
i.e Take the queen,a couple of frames of brood and bees and put in a new box in new position. A swarm cell,remaining brood and bees stay on the original box and position.
Queen has been severely weakened, all the flying bees go back to the original site, she can't swarm
The old brood box has all the flying bees with remainder of the existing brood awaiting a new queen.

I'm sure your replies will be interesting and diverse.

Dave

Bye a new queen

 

[alanf]

Some people do this and it works for them.

You have to be 100% confident you have only left one QC with the original hive and re check for new QC’s 4-5 day’s later.

The problem is it does not always suppress the bees swarming instinct and once they have raised a new queen they can try again to swarm.

Another disadvantage is that the old hive loses 2-4 even 6 weeks (bad weather year) of egg and brood production in your big colony until the new queen is mated and laying at a high level. At a time when you are probably wanting to build the foraging force for maximum honey yield that's a lot of bees you won't have.

Plus your new queen is from proven swarmy stock.

Beekeepers choice though, and done carefully the way the op describes works for those who I have seen use it.

 

[Poly Hive]

I can't say I have any issues with the colonies still being swarmy quite the reverse.

As for losing collection drive and ability, I found that too with the "proper" way of doing it so for me it makes no odds.

PH

 

[AdrianSmith]

I can't say I have any issues with the colonies still being swarmy quite the reverse.

As for losing collection drive and ability, I found that too with the "proper" way of doing it so for me it makes no odds.

PH

I'm sure I read somewhere that Brother Adam believed that simply killing the queen stopped them swarming. Is that nonsense?
It's a bit like this method, but leaves all the bees behind.
Anyone tried it?, perhaps just due to lack of spare equipment.

 

[Poly Hive]

Just a tad wasteful?

PH

 

[beesknee]

killing queen

I'm sure I read somewhere that Brother Adam believed that simply killing the queen stopped them swarming. Is that nonsense?
It's a bit like this method, but leaves all the bees behind.
Anyone tried it?, perhaps just due to lack of spare equipment.

why waste a good queen?

 

[AdrianSmith]

why waste a good queen?

Presumably, if all your spare kit, or apiary space, is being used in artficial swarms for other hives, you won't be short of queens, and you''ll waste one anyway if/when you reunite the split.
Is leaving a good queen cell and removing the queen not a reasonable option? - if it works of course.

 

[Poly Hive]

Seems the point is being missed.

The aim is to have as many bees as possible ready for "X" flow.

By placing the queen in a nuc and having her steam on whilst the virgin pupates, emerges, then mates and comes into lay... some four weeks at times the old queen is laying away, so when the two are united if that is what is wanted no time has been wasted, or considerably less than potentially may occur.

Waste not....

PH

 

[AdrianSmith]

Seems the point is being missed.

The aim is to have as many bees as possible ready for "X" flow.

By placing the queen in a nuc and having her steam on whilst the virgin pupates, emerges, then mates and comes into lay... some four weeks at times the old queen is laying away, so when the two are united if that is what is wanted no time has been wasted, or considerably less than potentially may occur.

Waste not....

PH

Oh yes.
Thank you.

 

[Davea]

My thinking for this artificial swarming this way was that if you leave the queen in the existing position with your foraging force and take away the brood and house bees, then the a good portion of the foragers now have to be nurse bees to raise the new brood thereby lessening the foragers and also the honey crop. The new eggs that are laid by that queen won't be foragers until six weeks later. Which by that time the flow will be over.
If you artificial swarm in the way I mentioned, then you will keep all the foragers a foraging , there will also be more bees emerging from existing brood and existing house bees will become foragers . 3-4 weeks later you have a fresh queen hopefully laying strong and ready to over winter.
You also have the option to combine with the nuc +/- old queen as necessary

.

 

[MandF]

Dont forget that a lot of flying bees arent foragers in the hive normally. You are actually releasing those to forage, which is a good thing during the main flow

I also forgot about that when thinking about my A/S