Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

Here goes. I find my marked queen from last year and swarm cells all over the place. This hive builds up like it?s on steroids. What can I do to prevent them from swarming? OR, What can I do to make the best of it?

First, put your caged queen and at least 5 frames packed with bees into a hive body or nuc box, and take it miles away.  This will make the hive think it has swarmed. 

Your queen is caged for a couple of days so she doesn't fly away.  Use a "swarm guard" to keep the queen in the new box, or an excluder below the bottom box, for about 20 days until all the foragers know it as their only home.

What happens with the swarm cells depends on whether you want to make splits (move each frame with cells to new nuc box with stores & bees) or just let one queen prevail. (leave it as-is)

Sounds like what you described that they are already decided to swarm and soon.  At that point splitting is about all you can do.  I would take the opportunity to make multiple splits or nucs.  I take the queen and several frames of bees to make the first split.  Then I take each frame that has a queen cell and make a split, leaving a queen cell left in the original hive.  I have done this before and ended up with 8 hives after queens hatched and returned from mating and started laying.

If you don't want that many splits or you don't have that many nuc boxes handy, you can pull the queen as stated above.  Then with the rest of the hive, cull all the queen cell except for a couple good ones on the same frame.  They may still swarm with a virgin queen if you leave too many queen cells and if they still have too many bees.

Thanks. Good food for thought.

Funny thing. In past years my procedures for swarm prevention worked pretty well. ie, breaking up the brood nest, checker boarding honey supers.  This year, NOTHING worked. Don?t have a clue why.

Lots of food.

Quote from: 2Sox on May 22, 2021, 12:12:34 PM
Thanks. Good food for thought.

Funny thing. In past years my procedures for swarm prevention worked pretty well. ie, breaking up the brood nest, checker boarding honey supers.  This year, NOTHING worked. Don?t have a clue why.

Perhaps reflect on the age of your queen(s) this year vs prior. For your consideration:  Queens in their 2nd or 3rd summer are usually much more prone to swarming than a young queen in her first year or an older queen beyond three who is too worn out to be bothered to leave.

Quote from: TheHoneyPump on May 23, 2021, 03:10:00 AM

Quote from: 2Sox on May 22, 2021, 12:12:34 PM
Thanks. Good food for thought.

Funny thing. In past years my procedures for swarm prevention worked pretty well. ie, breaking up the brood nest, checker boarding honey supers.  This year, NOTHING worked. Don?t have a clue why.

Perhaps reflect on the age of your queen(s) this year vs prior. For your consideration:  Queens in their 2nd or 3rd summer are usually much more prone to swarming than a young queen in her first year or an older queen beyond three who is too worn out to be bothered to leave.

Good to know.  All four of my hives that swarmed were the ones that came out of winter surviving. Last year they all came from swarm catches. And their brood patterns in each colony was amazing.  Meanwhile, they could have been queens that met that criteria you mention.

Another factor in the equation is that some strains of genetics are much more swarmy than others. If the hives were caught swarms last year and they again are swarmy this year ? there may be a strong correlation. 

Quote from: TheHoneyPump on May 24, 2021, 01:36:53 AM
Another factor in the equation is that some strains of genetics are much more swarmy than others. If the hives were caught swarms last year and they again are swarmy this year ? there may be a strong correlation. 

Got it. Makes sense. Thanks.

Quote from: cao on May 22, 2021, 11:15:53 AM
Sounds like what you described that they are already decided to swarm and soon.  At that point splitting is about all you can do.  I would take the opportunity to make multiple splits or nucs.  I take the queen and several frames of bees to make the first split.  Then I take each frame that has a queen cell and make a split, leaving a queen cell left in the original hive.  I have done this before and ended up with 8 hives after queens hatched and returned from mating and started laying.

If you don't want that many splits or you don't have that many nuc boxes handy, you can pull the queen as stated above.  Then with the rest of the hive, cull all the queen cell except for a couple good ones on the same frame.  They may still swarm with a virgin queen if you leave too many queen cells and if they still have too many bees.

This is what I did this year. I also put a swarm trap in the tree to catch any I missed.  :wink: