have you seen more swarming this year?

deerhunter · May 27, 2008, 09:47:09 PM

I live in Ohio and I have went from 4 hives to 24 hives in 3 weeks because of swarms this year and another bee keeper has gotten over 40 swarms so far this year. has this been normal or is it just a good year around here?

hooyaman · May 27, 2008, 11:17:07 PM

Wow, sounds like you have been busy. I don't think thats very unusual, but how many swarms did you get off one hive. I had one of my hives swarm 4 times in a five day period. One very large swarms and 4 small swarms. The large one I caught and the last one was very small, but I caught them and put them into an oberservation hive. The other 2 swarms went back into the box. After this deal, i went through all my hives and cut out the swarm queens and didn't have any more trouble. They quit swarming. I found several swarm queens in all my hives. A few of them hatched out as I was cutting them out of there. Pretty cool yes. Hope we all have a good crop of honey this year. have a good summer. Jeff

bassman1977 · May 28, 2008, 10:18:58 AM

QuoteI live in Ohio and I have went from 4 hives to 24 hives in 3 weeks because of swarms this year and another bee keeper has gotten over 40 swarms so far this year. has this been normal or is it just a good year around here?

If my bees swarmed, I haven't seen it. I know a couple had swarm cells so I made a couple splits with them. A buddy of mine called a couple days ago about a swarm he found in a tree. I didn't have the time or equipment to get out there. The swarm was huge. He sent me a few pics from his cell phone.

That was the only news of swarming I have heard all year so far.

CBEE · May 28, 2008, 11:32:32 AM

I live in Northern KY and we have seen a higher amount of swarming compared to last year.

SmokeEater2 · May 28, 2008, 12:07:10 PM

I spoke to a beekeeper last night who's on the 911 list to take care of swarms and he said he's taken 20 swarms this year and had several other calls when he was unavailable.

JP · May 28, 2008, 12:45:06 PM

Lots of swarming here, as usual.

...JP

KONASDAD · May 28, 2008, 03:12:13 PM

OOOdles of swarming this year. Also, a lot of queenlessness happeing too. I have been catching more swrms then ever, and my hives are swarming despite checkerboarding, adding supers, doing two splits, using frames to eqaulize. No matter what i did, 3 of my 5 big overwintered hives swarmed, the other two went queenless. Bizarre year so far. I may get less honey from 5 hives than i did from 2 last year. Flow still going strong so time will tell.

bassman1977 · May 28, 2008, 04:07:33 PM

I wonder if all this rain had to do a lot with it.

budhanes · May 28, 2008, 10:08:04 PM

It's been a madhouse here in Columbus area! Great pickings, but now all of my equipment is full! Where you at in Ohio?

deerhunter · June 02, 2008, 12:23:57 AM

East of Cincinnati and we now have 34 swarms and the other Bee Keep has 51 so far I am out of boxes and I just spent 400 dollars more for more boxes and frames.

I let 2 swarms go today I am just too full to take any more right now.

jimmyo · June 04, 2008, 08:52:39 AM

we have caught about 11 swarms this year. 2 last year.
I pulled a old deep from a brush pile because it looks like we might be able to put bees in it for a while. I've ordered more equipment and started building boxes yesterday.
Jim

indypartridge · June 04, 2008, 11:14:28 AM

At our local bee club meeting last evening we talked about how this is a banner year for swarms. "Why?" is anyone's guess, but our guess was that since May was unusually cold & rainy after a warm and sunny April, colonies began building up early only to get crowded when May's bad weather set in.

TwT · June 05, 2008, 06:17:28 AM

maybe its been the weather, I got more swarm calls last year in the bad draught than any other year.

Scadsobees · June 05, 2008, 01:55:29 PM

Quote from: indypartridge on June 04, 2008, 11:14:28 AM
At our local bee club meeting last evening we talked about how this is a banner year for swarms. "Why?" is anyone's guess, but our guess was that since May was unusually cold & rainy after a warm and sunny April, colonies began building up early only to get crowded when May's bad weather set in.

That was my thought as well. I've had 4 swarms from my 6 hives, and I am not sure which hives they came out of yet.

doak · June 05, 2008, 02:54:53 PM

They are swarming to replace all the colonies that have been lost to ccd, etc.
Believe it.
doak

MrILoveTheAnts · June 05, 2008, 03:15:58 PM

The genetics of bees that swarm more were less likely the target of CCD. Also we had some great early spring weather and I hate it. Maple trees have become the new weed! I have thousands of seedlings all over the garden I still have to pluck, they're growing in our gutters, under loose shingles in the roof to our shed, everywhere!

Brian D. Bray · June 05, 2008, 11:38:14 PM

Quote from: doak on June 05, 2008, 02:54:53 PM
They are swarming to replace all the colonies that have been lost to ccd, etc.
Believe it.
doak

I don't believe so, it is much more likely that they are swarming after several years of drought in many areas of the US to make up for feral hive loss. I would consider it a natural reaction to have multiple swarms after a few years of drought when forage was low or nil than as a result of a man or virus caused decrease in hive numbers.