Hi everyone. I have a few swarming questions for you. First some background info. I have been doing this for a few years now. I have 2 hives. I want to learn as much about the hobby as I can before I expand. I am very meticulous about my bees, I record every inspection and I decided to be as organic with them as possible.
Here is my struggle. The oldest of my 2 hives seems to be notorious for swarming. Fortunately I have been able to catch the swarm the last few years and start a new hive or in the case 2 years ago. I went through the process of trying to simulate a swarm in this hive by removing frames, creating plenty of new space and in general soaking up all the info all of you had written to others on this site. Oh and this hive winters over great!
Well after all that work that hive swarmed again. Now let me tell you the queen was in her 2nd year as I was going to replace her this fall, ( she has been a GREAT girl and I just couldnt bear killing her) Well I was on vacation for about 10 days and sure enough when I came home, I found swarm cells. The population had exploded and even after the swarm there was tons of bees in the hive. It gets direct sun from sun-up till about 3 pm, then partial shade.
I captured this swarm and got them into a makeshift hive. I only had 6 out of 10 frames in teh chamber I had them in and 4 days later. they had build comb haning from the inner cover down into that empty space. I got my new frames, removed the hanign ones they made and the hive seems ok. I could not find the queen though. 1 day later they were gone!!!!!
Furthermore; I have noticed that in my two hives the brood chambers are loaded wtih brood and honey, ( i have not had chambers that heavy in a a while, but the honey supes have been barely drawn out or touched. But each hive has a ton of activety!
Here are my questions:
1) Is there something I am doing wrong that is causing them to swarm?
2) Is there something I can do to stop them from swarming?
3) If removing brood and replacing with empty frames is what I have to do every year how long until I end up with 10 hives?
4) should I have not removed that haning "wild" comb that the swarm had built?
5) Should I worry about the honey deal?
thanks everyone for your help on this.
Quote from: BarnesBees on June 17, 2009, 12:29:22 PM
Hi everyone. I have a few swarming questions for you. First some background info. I have been doing this for a few years now. I have 2 hives. I want to learn as much about the hobby as I can before I expand. I am very meticulous about my bees, I record every inspection and I decided to be as organic with them as possible.
Here is my struggle. The oldest of my 2 hives seems to be notorious for swarming. Fortunately I have been able to catch the swarm the last few years and start a new hive or in the case 2 years ago. I went through the process of trying to simulate a swarm in this hive by removing frames, creating plenty of new space and in general soaking up all the info all of you had written to others on this site. Oh and this hive winters over great!
Well after all that work that hive swarmed again. Now let me tell you the queen was in her 2nd year as I was going to replace her this fall, ( she has been a GREAT girl and I just couldnt bear killing her) Well I was on vacation for about 10 days and sure enough when I came home, I found swarm cells. The population had exploded and even after the swarm there was tons of bees in the hive. It gets direct sun from sun-up till about 3 pm, then partial shade.
I captured this swarm and got them into a makeshift hive. I only had 6 out of 10 frames in teh chamber I had them in and 4 days later. they had build comb haning from the inner cover down into that empty space. I got my new frames, removed the hanign ones they made and the hive seems ok. I could not find the queen though. 1 day later they were gone!!!!!
Furthermore; I have noticed that in my two hives the brood chambers are loaded wtih brood and honey, ( i have not had chambers that heavy in a a while, but the honey supes have been barely drawn out or touched. But each hive has a ton of activety!
Are you using excluders? If so take them off and wait until the bees begin working 3-4 frames, drawing comb, etc, before replacing it.
Here are my questions:
1) Is there something I am doing wrong that is causing them to swarm?[/quote}
Are you supering using the 70/30 or 80/20 rule?
Are you pulling frames from the brood chamber and replacing them with empty frames so they have to drawn new comb in the brood chamber?
Do you use the act of making splits part of your swarm management system?
Are your hives congested with either bees (bearding) or honey (backfilled brood chamber)?
Are the hives vented to encourage air flow?
How much are you feeding your bees and how late? Read up on honey bound.
If you are not doing any of those things, or only part of those things, then the remainder is part of what is being done wrong.
Quote2) Is there something I can do to stop them from swarming?
Look at the above list, those things will assist in curtailing swarming but there is no way on earth to keep them from swarming. A very good, attentive beekeeper might keep his hives from swarming 2 out of 3 years but you can bet he made a bunch of splits (artificial swarms) in the process.
Quote3) If removing brood and replacing with empty frames is what I have to do every year how long until I end up with 10 hives?
?? That sounds like you're making splits. If you have 2 hives and you split each then you have 4 hives, the next year you get 8 by splitting, and the following year 16 barring pest and winter losses.
Quote4) should I have not removed that haning "wild" comb that the swarm had built?
Are you tallking about burr comb? If so then be assured that removing the burr comb will not make them swarm. But, burr comb can be an indicator of becoming honey bound and the need for supering should be evaluated.
Quote5) Should I worry about the honey deal?
thanks everyone for your help on this.
Every beekeeper worries about the honey deal.
Brian D. Bray just about covered it.
You have to start your swarm "prevention" before they develop the "urge" To swarm.
Then is when it becomes swarm "control".
Once they start building queen cells it is too late for prevention.
In other words you have to prevent the urge.
If not you have to control the results, which is building queen cells and swarming.
Do not wait till there is queen cells almost ready or are capped.
It is too late then, you would most likely get a swarm any how and they would not have any eggs/larvae for making a new queen.
When you do find capped queen cells and the colony has not swarmed, you can do a split and make them believe they have swarmed. But it is touchy.
Some time you can try every thing in the books or what other beekers tell you or even unheard of things, and they will still swarm.
Any time you know you are going to be away for a week or more, always add another deep brood box, if that is what you are using. If you are using mediums for brood then you might want to add two. In this situation too many is better than not enough. You can always take one back off.
hope this helps. :)doak
I hope that I am not hijacking this thread I am interested in one of Brian's questions
"Are you supering using the 70/30 or 80/20 rule?"
This is the first time I have heard this and I would be interested in an explanation
Mick
The 70/30 or 80/20 rule refers to the number of frames drawn out in the box in the brood chamber. Most say not to add another brood chamber on top until the first box has either 7 or 8 frames drawn out.
Thanks for that
Mick
Thanks everyone for that input. It all makes sense. I have been using the 80/20 rule. to date.
to answer some of your questions I do have quite a bit of honey filled frames in my brood chambers.