Rocovering from losing an early swarm ?

[HM Honey]

I've managed to only lose a swarm from one of my four colonies so far (touch wood).

It just got me wondering. Does loosing a swarm in May mean you can kiss goodbye to any honey from that colony, or should they recover quickly enough to be able to still provide some honey?

Also, a question for the experienced beeks on here. What are the suggested remedies or actions once you have losta swarm, to try and "recover" the colony to still get some honey?

I'm thinking, things like....collecting another swarm and combining them with your colony? Requeening with a bought in queen? etc etc

 

[oliver90owner]

Think here bees in nature - they swarm and survive the winter (OK, a lot of swarm colonies won't survive and some parent colonies would struggle, particularly those that throw several cast swarms later in the season), so those colonies must collect adequate stores for the winter. And what do we consider adequate winter stores levels?

Think here the old ditty of 'A swarm in May is worth...'

Does that answer your query?

Uniting, reinforcing, etc are all simple possibilities. Perhaps, now, you can think of some more?

 

[YorkshireBees]

Think timescales, time for new queen to hatch / mate / lay.

Although it doesn't mean that there will be no surplus honey the population of the colony is greatly reduced and will not catch up to how it would have been without a swarm.

As Oliver mentioned there are various ways to help:-

Uniting, re-queening etc.

The choice is yours

 

[Arfermo]

Clipping the queen would almost certainly have saved the honey crop as well as the whole colony - provided you did away with most of the QCs that were there of course.

 

[HM Honey]

Clipping the queen would almost certainly have saved the honey crop as well as the whole colony - provided you did away with most of the QCs that were there of course.

Yep, I'll definitely be clipping this year....

 

[Chris Luck]

My bees are all allowed to swarm and I still harvest plenty of honey even when they are late swarming as last year. All the old professionals around these parts allow(ed) their bees to swarm.

Chris

 

[Excession]

No swarm control at all? Or do you stop cast swarms by knocking down cells?

 

[drstitson]

Bees naturally choose cavity sizes (40l) that one imagines has emerged during their evolution as the optimal size to allow a decent sized colony to build up (plus stores) and yet restricted enough to encourage swarming at an optimal point in the season so that hopefully both parent and daughter colonies have time to build up enough for the next winter.

 

[Chris Luck]

No swarm control at all? Or do you stop cast swarms by knocking down cells?

I prefer not too feck with my bees. Some, shock, horror don't even have honey harvested, they just live in their different boxes.

Truth is that I find with foundation less frames, bars, whatever there are very few colonies that produce a cast although one did the other week. Ain't nature wonderful?

Chris