Swarm management/control/prevention?

[bjosephd]

Hello all…

Do you experienced beeks generally try and head off swarm preparations by managing your colonies before queen cups/cells get charged?

Or do you mostly wait until you see the production of charged queen cups/cells and use that as your cue for making artificial swarms or other control methods?

This is my first full season and am wondering if I keep checking until I see swarm preparations brewing, or if I should try and pre-empt.

I wonder if that would be better as it might suit my kit/timetable etc if I act first on 'my' terms, rather than suddenly finding I have to make desperate frantic attempts to head things off in both colonies all on the same day and it all become a bit much!

Cheers all!

BJD

 

[idg]

You should always have an eye on congestion, laying space etc. Wally Shaws booklet is very good for swarm prevention ideas. However in reality it invariably comes down to reactive swarm control rather than preventative. I am finding the Snelgrove 2 very good as I had very little success with the Pagden. You do need quite a bit of kit tho.

 

[bjosephd]

You should always have an eye on congestion, laying space etc. Wally Shaws booklet is very good for swarm prevention ideas. However in reality it invariably comes down to reactive swarm control rather than preventative. I am finding the Snelgrove 2 very good as I had very little success with the Pagden. You do need quite a bit of kit tho.

Thanks idg

Yep… I've got the Wally Shaw booklet on my phone for reading at spare moments. I will review the snelgrove 2 method.

I think I was looking at pagden or pulling nuc/s.

(assuming pagden is moving main colony away - & queen, flying bees, and frame of brood remaining in old position)

What do you find goes wrong with your pagden?

BJD

p.s. have already given good space to both colonies, will see tomorrow how much they're filling it up and if any swarm preps in either.

 

[idg]

Pagden for me doesn't seem to subdue the swarm fever, and they just make more queen cells. With the Snelgrove, the queen and the flyers are separated. The flyers are forced to go through the queen rearing process which I think helps them settle.

 

[Vortex]

Thanks idg

p.s. have already given good space to both colonies, will see tomorrow how much they're filling it up and if any swarm preps in either.

Giving them space doesn't always work .. one of my colonies is thinking about swarming .. they have a super but are refusing to move any of the honey from their congested B+H into the super..

As to your original question it's pretty much reactive.. wait for QC then split.
If you're inspecting every 7 days (6/7/8) then the chances of them getting away are greatly reduced.
Doing it this was does mean I carry a couple of nuc boxes and a few spare frames with me at every inspection just in case.

 

[bjosephd]

Thanks vortex…

Yep… I'm aware that sadly just extra space doesn't always calm things down… however mine has no excluder and both colonies are now using both upper and lower boxes (one needed to be lured across with a couple of frames of brood though!).

So at least the queen has plenty of laying space… for what it's worth!

7 days still sounds pretty tight to me since they cap QCs on the 8th day and can potentially swarm before capping. But of course badgering them too often is clearly not healthy.

 

[Millet]

Giving them space doesn't always work .. one of my colonies is thinking about swarming .. they have a super but are refusing to move any of the honey from their congested B+H into the super..

As to your original question it's pretty much reactive.. wait for QC then split.
If you're inspecting every 7 days (6/7/8) then the chances of them getting away are greatly reduced.
Doing it this was does mean I carry a couple of nuc boxes and a few spare frames with me at every inspection just in case.

I have just found that out, mine where on brood plus half + another super on top of that, both the brood + half where full of bees with eggs and brood in the super, they still made Queen cells, from what i am led to believe they was too many bees in there to spread the Queen pheromone which triggered swarming mode.

 

[Eyeman]

7 days still sounds pretty tight to me since they cap QCs on the 8th day and can potentially swarm before capping. But of course badgering them too often is clearly not healthy.

1. Clip your queens then they are either still in the hive, on the grass or under the hive until the first virgin emerges
2. If after a Pagden they continue to raise QC's then I remove the queen in a nuc with some brood and leave them with one QC and let them get on with it. You can then unite with the new queen from the part you split off.

 

[bjosephd]

I have a colony who are just starting to move into their second brood box.

I have just been looking at Wally Shaw's Snelgrove 2 on the his swarming leaflet

http://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Swarm-Control-Wally-Shaw.pdf

My plan was to move the brood filled top box away with majority of brood and nurse bees...

leaving the queen, the 2 or so frames of brood and adhered nurse bees, in the original position.

Wally does a shuffle with the queen going with the brood filled box and then returning her some time later to the original position… BUT if I am pre-empting swarm preps (is the plan!) then is this really necessary. Since he states...

"It is thought that the temporary loss of the queen, but with the means of making emergency queen cells to replace her, is what turns off the swarming impulse in the artificial swarm."

I'm hoping I will (tomorrow) pre-empt said impulse, and I'd rather not be messing around with the queen too much.

Thoughts?

BJD

 

[bjosephd]

p.s. I realise this would give me an 'emergency queen' in the moved box, which many say is not ideal. So maybe I should wait for a big fat swarm cell after all.