Poly Hive
Queen Bee
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2008
- Messages
- 14,097
- Reaction score
- 401
- Location
- Scottish Borders
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 12 and 18 Nucs
Swarming.
You have a plan right?
Have you enough equipment ready to go?
What does what mean? Demeree, Pagden...
“I am confused.”
Well let's see if we can straighten some things out.
What I am going to suggest is but one way, there are quite a few and of course they all work perfectly every time in every circumstance. Rubbish they do.
So on a realistic basis what can you expect?
At worst a swarm hanging from a bush or down a neighbours chimney which is why we are going to have a think about avoiding all that awkwardness and beekeeping embarrassment. Be honest with yourself, unleashing swarms on the public is not the best of beekeeping.
What is swarming? Sex. Reproduction. And because it is sexy stuff the impulses are very powerful indeed.
So how do you know a colony is going to swarm? Arguably the very first indicator is the building of play cups on brood frames, although many colonies build them and do nothing at all, they just like to have the “foundations” laid as it were. A play cup is a finger tip sized cup built of wax on the brood frames, and there may be quite a few of them.
Your colony most likely will be getting stronger, though some colonies will swarm out of frustration at lack of room for the queen to lay up.
The transfer of pheromones from the queen becomes too diluted to act as the cohesive glue that holds the colony as a unit due to the number of bees, and the fun begins.
The first real hint you will get is an egg in a queen cup. That is not a statement of intent but I find it is more often than not a pretty big clue. When you look next that egg may well be missing, a not uncommon happening, or there will be a larvae in a nice thick bed of royal jelly.
Your colony has just announced they are in swarm mode by reason of that larvae. They are NOT serious about swarming when there is an egg, but they ARE serious when there is a larvae.
There are theories that if you keep knocking out queen cells your bees will settle down. And I believe in the tooth fairy too. If your colony has swarm cells whether sealed or open they are minded to go, and nothing you can do short of killing them is going to change their minds, and remember you are dealing with 50 odd thousand determined females.
What to do?
Most swarm theories now begin with find the queen. Ho ho ho says you never seen her yet.
But you do know how to tell if she is laying: yes because you can see the eggs, and if you cannot then possibly you need some assistance in learning how to tilt the comb so that the light, and of course you have your back to the sun, is shining over your shoulder into the cells so you can observe them.
Yes eggs can be seen. Ok, so the next thing is to find out where the queen is.
At the simplest she will be in one brood box and if accessing more than one (double brood box) then by using queen excluders we can isolate her to the one box.
At this point if you are competent and confident you can do a careful search and pop her into a nuc box on a frame of brood with the bees from a couple of frames of brood shaken in too.
Warning. Never shake a frame which has a queen cell you want to use.
If you are saying you are in neither of those happy states then lets go to plan B.
I am assuming here that you are using National equipment. Modify for other frames as you wish.
Using two nuc boxes divide the brood box frames between them and the brood box, making sure there is an open cell in the brood box to keep the main force of bees happy, and four days later you will know in which one the queen is. Yes fresh eggs and no cells. However there is a risk that you will not find her in your nucs and she may still be in the hive. There is obviously the chance that some wild comb will be built in your brood box but in the space of four days nothing overly dramatic.
Ok, so we now have the queen located. She can be left in the brood box and move the entire box off to one side, or be moved to a nuc box and can be considered an insurance policy. If she has a frame of brood and a frame to lay up and the rest foundation she will be safe enough and doing some work for you. I would also shake in a couple of frames of bees to give her a good hand. Of course a drop of syrup will help them out too.
The nuc boxes which are queenless can be united again into the main hive, and to be sure use some news paper or perfume spray to help their re-acceptance.
In the main hive I leave ONE open cell, the youngest possible. Leave them well alone to get on with it and with some good weather she will be mated with in 5 weeks. I hear you gasp but, I allow virgins up to 30 odd days to mate, and of course she has to get from being a cell to hatched virgin.
Personally I would also use another of the open cells in a nuc box to act as another insurance. This way your swarming colony gets two goes at mating virgins and also has the old queen in reserve.
Timing.
It's up to you.
You can go with the bees and when it happens it happens and it's all good. Or you can........
Work out when your target flow, your main nectar flow begins, and from that date work back to ensure your virgins will have enough time to mate. Remember the magic figures, 3 days an egg, 5 days a larvae and 8 days pupation. Total 16... plus of course enough time to mate.
If you take my worst figure of 30 days and add in the 16, then you know when to create the artificial swarm for yourself. Find your queen via above and off you go.
Flow begins on the first of July. 16th of May would be a good time, more likely the weekend of the 21st or 22nd would suit most. Why? All of June is set aside for the mating, so from the 31st of May count back the 16 days but allow for the four already “spent” as the timing really starts from the hatched egg in the open cell. Day 4.
Once your virgins are mated you can unite your nuc and the Queens nuc to the main colony to max it up for the main flow you are aiming for. Though myself I would keep the mated virgin in the nuc for a spare. Remember of course that you have to de-queen before uniting.
True swarms go through what I can only describe as a “mind wipe” and can be located anywhere you like. However when dealing with an artificial swarm procedure this does not happen and so nucs made up need to have the entrance stuffed with grass for a few days so that the bees will adjust to the new position.
I hope this may assist some even if it amuses others.
PH
You have a plan right?
Have you enough equipment ready to go?
What does what mean? Demeree, Pagden...
“I am confused.”
Well let's see if we can straighten some things out.
What I am going to suggest is but one way, there are quite a few and of course they all work perfectly every time in every circumstance. Rubbish they do.
So on a realistic basis what can you expect?
At worst a swarm hanging from a bush or down a neighbours chimney which is why we are going to have a think about avoiding all that awkwardness and beekeeping embarrassment. Be honest with yourself, unleashing swarms on the public is not the best of beekeeping.
What is swarming? Sex. Reproduction. And because it is sexy stuff the impulses are very powerful indeed.
So how do you know a colony is going to swarm? Arguably the very first indicator is the building of play cups on brood frames, although many colonies build them and do nothing at all, they just like to have the “foundations” laid as it were. A play cup is a finger tip sized cup built of wax on the brood frames, and there may be quite a few of them.
Your colony most likely will be getting stronger, though some colonies will swarm out of frustration at lack of room for the queen to lay up.
The transfer of pheromones from the queen becomes too diluted to act as the cohesive glue that holds the colony as a unit due to the number of bees, and the fun begins.
The first real hint you will get is an egg in a queen cup. That is not a statement of intent but I find it is more often than not a pretty big clue. When you look next that egg may well be missing, a not uncommon happening, or there will be a larvae in a nice thick bed of royal jelly.
Your colony has just announced they are in swarm mode by reason of that larvae. They are NOT serious about swarming when there is an egg, but they ARE serious when there is a larvae.
There are theories that if you keep knocking out queen cells your bees will settle down. And I believe in the tooth fairy too. If your colony has swarm cells whether sealed or open they are minded to go, and nothing you can do short of killing them is going to change their minds, and remember you are dealing with 50 odd thousand determined females.
What to do?
Most swarm theories now begin with find the queen. Ho ho ho says you never seen her yet.
But you do know how to tell if she is laying: yes because you can see the eggs, and if you cannot then possibly you need some assistance in learning how to tilt the comb so that the light, and of course you have your back to the sun, is shining over your shoulder into the cells so you can observe them.
Yes eggs can be seen. Ok, so the next thing is to find out where the queen is.
At the simplest she will be in one brood box and if accessing more than one (double brood box) then by using queen excluders we can isolate her to the one box.
At this point if you are competent and confident you can do a careful search and pop her into a nuc box on a frame of brood with the bees from a couple of frames of brood shaken in too.
Warning. Never shake a frame which has a queen cell you want to use.
If you are saying you are in neither of those happy states then lets go to plan B.
I am assuming here that you are using National equipment. Modify for other frames as you wish.
Using two nuc boxes divide the brood box frames between them and the brood box, making sure there is an open cell in the brood box to keep the main force of bees happy, and four days later you will know in which one the queen is. Yes fresh eggs and no cells. However there is a risk that you will not find her in your nucs and she may still be in the hive. There is obviously the chance that some wild comb will be built in your brood box but in the space of four days nothing overly dramatic.
Ok, so we now have the queen located. She can be left in the brood box and move the entire box off to one side, or be moved to a nuc box and can be considered an insurance policy. If she has a frame of brood and a frame to lay up and the rest foundation she will be safe enough and doing some work for you. I would also shake in a couple of frames of bees to give her a good hand. Of course a drop of syrup will help them out too.
The nuc boxes which are queenless can be united again into the main hive, and to be sure use some news paper or perfume spray to help their re-acceptance.
In the main hive I leave ONE open cell, the youngest possible. Leave them well alone to get on with it and with some good weather she will be mated with in 5 weeks. I hear you gasp but, I allow virgins up to 30 odd days to mate, and of course she has to get from being a cell to hatched virgin.
Personally I would also use another of the open cells in a nuc box to act as another insurance. This way your swarming colony gets two goes at mating virgins and also has the old queen in reserve.
Timing.
It's up to you.
You can go with the bees and when it happens it happens and it's all good. Or you can........
Work out when your target flow, your main nectar flow begins, and from that date work back to ensure your virgins will have enough time to mate. Remember the magic figures, 3 days an egg, 5 days a larvae and 8 days pupation. Total 16... plus of course enough time to mate.
If you take my worst figure of 30 days and add in the 16, then you know when to create the artificial swarm for yourself. Find your queen via above and off you go.
Flow begins on the first of July. 16th of May would be a good time, more likely the weekend of the 21st or 22nd would suit most. Why? All of June is set aside for the mating, so from the 31st of May count back the 16 days but allow for the four already “spent” as the timing really starts from the hatched egg in the open cell. Day 4.
Once your virgins are mated you can unite your nuc and the Queens nuc to the main colony to max it up for the main flow you are aiming for. Though myself I would keep the mated virgin in the nuc for a spare. Remember of course that you have to de-queen before uniting.
True swarms go through what I can only describe as a “mind wipe” and can be located anywhere you like. However when dealing with an artificial swarm procedure this does not happen and so nucs made up need to have the entrance stuffed with grass for a few days so that the bees will adjust to the new position.
I hope this may assist some even if it amuses others.
PH
