Swarms & temperature

greenbtree · May 17, 2011, 12:17:27 PM

Curious - has anyone tracked swarming in relation to temperature? If it is cold the night before are the bees less likely to swarm the next day? I just thought of this as I was loading my care with my swarm kit - it was 35 degrees here last night, I haven't got a swarm call yet, but we have only had 3 or 4 days that have been above 70, 2 of those hit 90 though. Goofy weather this year.

JC

joebrown · May 17, 2011, 04:56:51 PM

I do not know if the night time temperature would matter but the day time temperature would definitely need to be higher than 55 degrees for the bees to comfortably break the cluster!

L Daxon · May 17, 2011, 08:18:03 PM

I guess this would be related but i was wondering if there was a time of day bees tend to swarm. Both of the hives I've watched swarm in my back yard this year did it around 11 a.m. With the weather we have been having, temps would have been in the low 80s.

joebrown · May 17, 2011, 10:50:57 PM

My bees typically swarm between 10 and 2.

CapnChkn · May 17, 2011, 11:16:37 PM

The recent weather we've been having has me wondering:

If the bees are preparing, they have swarm cells up and running, the weather turns cold, and they can't break cluster, what happens when the queens break from their cells?

Would the colony kill the embryonic queen and try again when the weather warms?

Finski · May 18, 2011, 12:57:26 AM

Quote from: CapnChkn on May 17, 2011, 11:16:37 PM
The recent weather we've been having has me wondering:

If the bees are preparing, they have swarm cells up and running, the weather turns cold, and they can't break cluster, what happens when the queens break from their cells?

There are 2 moments when usually swarm exits :

1. prime swarm when first queen cell is capped

2. second swarm when new queens emerge.

If weather is bad and swarm cannot keave, the swarm may have several queens. I have met 7 queens.

When second swarm leaves, there may be 10 ready queens waiting to come out of cells. The cell has a tiny hole in the tip and queens are piping there and ready to fly. I suppose that bees feed queens via hole, because queens push their tongue out continuously.

When the swarm have left you may get 10 ready queens from cells and walking around combs. Queens pipe much at that moment. They must be 2 days old because they are able to fly.

What I wonder is that bees have decided 2 weeks earlier to rear the queens From where the colonies get the impulse to do that because many hives swarm nearly same day.

Swarming cannot be a cold night idea. It is a long process.

annette · May 18, 2011, 02:15:24 AM

I was told swarms occur the first warm day after a rain. All the swarm calls I have received out here, the bees arrived late in the afternoon.

CapnChkn · May 18, 2011, 11:14:55 PM

QuoteSwarming cannot be a cold night idea. It is a long process.

Yeah! They're predicting the weather 2+ weeks in advance. The bees have meteorology down better than the weather service!

I guess it makes sense that the virgin queens would be given a reprieve, and the workers would "keep the peace" until showtime. Are the queens then kept in the cells by the workers? I know they open the cells themselves.

Finski · May 19, 2011, 01:26:50 AM

Quote from: annette on May 18, 2011, 02:15:24 AM
I was told swarms occur the first warm day after a rain. All the swarm calls I have received out here, the bees arrived late in the afternoon.

Rainy weeks add swarming when bees have not foraging job. We have here 2-3 weeks blooming gap when bees do not get any yield. That makes swarm too. Carniolans swarm first and Italians 2-3 weeks later. Strong hives swarms first and weak hives perhaps not at all.

We have in Finland cold nights enough. We have an advice: plant summer flowers out after 10.6. Then we have not any more frost nights.

10.6 is the end of early yield period and dandelion finishes its blooming. After that swarm period starts. Swarming is at its best about 25.6. It is two weeks after dandelion stops blooming.

In July I do not get any more swarms. Those who want to swarm, have swarmed.

It is better to do in time artificial swarm. So you get off from control jobs.
This summer I add mite killing in artificial swarm process.

.

JP · May 20, 2011, 02:10:42 AM

They get held up when a cold front comes in but I have seen them swarm before a front, poor darlings all huddled up, tight!

I've said it before many times and its true, the moon has everything to do with swarming, more so gravitational pull.

I have observed this over the years that most of my swarm calls come a few days before, during and right after a full moon. And it was true again this time around.

...JP

joebrown · May 20, 2011, 02:20:58 AM

JP- I will keep an eye on this from now on!!

CapnChkn · May 20, 2011, 02:38:18 AM

Me too JP! Thank you.

AliciaH · May 20, 2011, 12:07:55 PM

Yesterday (5/19), in Alicia's apiary, the proper time to swarm was 4:15 p.m. The two hives that swarmed agreed on this and swarmed accordingly. :shock: Guess I missed a cell, well, two. And, I obviously didn't get a copy of the memo.

Ironically, I was setting up swarm traps at the time! :evil: Got the little deviants!

annette · May 20, 2011, 04:00:56 PM

OH Alicia

How lucky you had those swarm traps. Were the traps up in a tree?? Just curious where you keep them.

AliciaH · May 20, 2011, 07:40:16 PM

Hi, Annette!

My apiary measure 100x100 with 4x4s for the corners. I ran an additional 2x4 across the tops of the corners to form a triangle, then placed the empty boxes on those. It puts them about 5-1/2 feet off the ground.

It was simply luck that they were already landing where I was putting the boxes. One group marched right in, the other group needed a bit of prompting with the bee brush but it worked out.

I figure I'll give them a couple days, then heft the boxes down. I'd like to put another pair up.

Brian D. Bray · May 21, 2011, 07:12:27 PM

In all my years of beekeeping I still haven't been able to when a particular hive will swarm. There's too many variables. I've had hives from swarm early in the morning until evening, before storms and after storms, on warm sunny days and on rainy (light sprinkles) days.
When the bees swarm is up to them and they often swarm without the queen because the swarm queen is a virgin and isn't ready to fly yet.

What I have learned is some indicators of a pending swarm:
1. When the queen cell is capped, if #3 is applicable.
2. When a virgin queen has hatched and there are still queen cells in the hive (cells started several days to a week later).
3. There are 8 frames of brood in each brood chamber and 80-90% of it is capped.
4. Most of the drone brood has already hatched and mostly worker brood remains.
5. Large population of worker bees in addition to large amount of capped brood.
6. There are no eggs and all larvae are at least the 5th day of development.

Signs that a swarm has occurred:
1. No new eggs or larvae, only capped brood.
2. 80-90% of brood chamber has hatched.
3. Large percentage of capped stores have vanished.
4. Most forage that is evident is uncapped.
5. Minimal drone brood.
6. Drone kill off is taking place.