What is your preferred method of swarm control?

[onehorse]

But, my understanding is that while reversing the broodboxes reduces the desire to swarm, it also confuses the bees and sets them back as they try to move the honey from the center of the brood chamber back out to the edges and move the queen to another place to lay, therefore reducing the amount of brood produced for nectar collection? My other understanding is that we have to flip these boxes frequently to constantly keep them on the edge of confusion to avoid swarming?

Our situation is that this hive currently has a deep on the bottom and 2 mediums above. This is our last deep, as we are going to all mediums, because I am not in the position to be throwing around deeps. Deeps seemed nice when they are brand new with only weighing 15 lbs with frames and foundation, but I can't throw 70 - 90lbs around anymore. In this situation, I am not sure when/how to go about doing a split, as I don't want to do it super early in the season off of the medium, as I doubt it will be effective later in the season and I don't want to do a split later in the season off the deep, as we want to get rid of the deeps that we have, not create more. The availablity of queens also comes into question too, as a lot of the local guys are sold out for early spring already. Now, our hope is that they will move up enough that we can pull the deep out and get it cut down, but I suspect that will put the bees in a situation where they have a serious overhead cap of honey due too the second box of honey. Checkboarding is what I have been reading about, as it sounds like it has a lot of positives, but was looking for other things people have done. Though it is the first time I have heard of just doing a 180 with the boxes to confuse them enough to buy a day or two, but sometimes that just enough.

Thanks all!

[tecumseh]

onehorse writes:
it also confuses the bees and sets them back as they try to move the honey from the center of the brood chamber back out to the edges and move the queen to another place to lay, therefore reducing the amount of brood produced for nectar collection? My other understanding is that we have to flip these boxes frequently to constantly keep them on the edge of confusion to avoid swarming?

tecumseh:
I have never seen anyone flip hive bodies more than once in the spring and once again in the fall. Frequently??? I think not. really the idea is to do the least manipulation as is possible. anything else is just adding to your work load

and the bees 'moving the queen to another place to lay'.... humm.. well I guess some folks understanding of bee biology is a bit different from mine? my queens move about on their own without much assistance looking for a clean and polished set of cells in which to lay eggs.

I have never heard anyone suggest that instilling constant confusion on a hive as an appropriate method of limiting swarming. Very curious rhetoric I would suggest. I would suggest that the less you disturb the brood nest (for example the less you move frames of brood about) the less agitated or hostile a hive will become.

Moving nectar/honey outwards (on a standard hive with a standard entrance) I also think not. you can get bees to move honey upward if you strategically place it near the entrance and lightly scratch the cappings. a different manipulation for a different purpose (ie to mimic a honey flow)... the bee move/relocate the honey for security reasons.

splits you can do with or without a purchased queen. without takes longer and is a bit more risky. the best time to do either is at the front side of a honey flow.

[Iddee]

>>>>and the bees 'moving the queen to another place to lay'.... humm.. well I guess some folks understanding of bee biology is a bit different from mine? my queens move about on their own without much assistance looking for a clean and polished set of cells in which to lay eggs.<<<<

Is the cleaning and polishing of cells in a certain area not considered moving the queen to that area? I would think the workers move her like you moving a body of water. Causing it to move on it's own to where you want it to go.

I have never reversed boxes more than once per year. In the spring only, and then only if the bottom box is totally empty. Even tho I like the sound of Walt's checkerboarding, I have never followed it to a tee. I firmly believe the bees move the brood nest up and down according to the amount of stores they have. I have never seen them store nectar below the brood nest, so they must move it down as the flow comes on.
Swarming is also natural, and I don't maximize prevention of it.

There is soooo much talk of "natural" beekeeping done on the internet today, by the same beeks that want to maximize honey production, prevent swarming, supplement the natural food flow, ETC. Things that never would happen naturally, but still practiced by the "natural" beeks.

My personal opinion is to find a happy medium in all walks of life, and not go to the extreme in either direction.

[barry42001]

Everyone will espouse the technique that suits thier own thoughts on this subject--for those reading this subject, ultimately with time you will do what you believe works best for you. I have repeatedly stated and will restate it again--allowing the colony to split whether by your design or thiers( swarming ) is not a economical way for increase. You atleast cut in half the population of the parent colony, of that there is no doubt, most of who accompanied the old queen are the older field bees, leaving only the nurse bees and those that are hatching or will hatch in the next week. The new queen will need atleast a week to start laying eggs, and another 21 days before the first new workers come on to the scene, another 2 - 4 weeks before those bees become field bees. In the swarm, the queen will start laying eggs immediately, assuming you have the bees on drawn comb, still 21 days before the first new bees, then still same 2 - 4 weeks before they are field capable. How this is a good thing I can't quite understand. Swarm control is the ONLY way to maintain a productive unless you aren't particularly interested in honey production and can settle for half of what could have been gathered. Both the hives together will not collect as much honey as the one strong colony will. Now that my speech is done, rotating the brood chambers 2 times, once a month for 2( or approx. every 24 days actually ) monthes earlier does nothing because the hatching brood taked 21 days to mature and hatch. later and you risk honey bounding the queen as the supers fill up with raw nectar, the bees will increasingly store it in more open cells to allow it to condense, and cure, this when is possible for honey/ nectar to encroach into the brood chamber. As for polished cells one of the first duties of a hatching worker is to clean and polish its own cell. I totally understand if you have 200 colonies, and have no time to do this manipulations that need to be done, but for the bulk of us with 1 - 20 colonies, is only a few hours work, then done for a month-and is alot easier then chasing down a swarm and with a 50/ 50 chance of never recovering them.

[sqkcrk]

I use the Kutic method, I just didn't know that was what it was called... Maybe I'll just call it the sckcrk method.

I don't really know what it is called or if it is called anything. I just thought that if feeding dry sugar on newspaper can be known as The Mountaincamp Method on some other bee site which we won't mention, then I could name the method in honor of the guy that I stole the idea from.

Call it what you will. The sqkcrk Method is fine. sqkcrk stands for Squeak Creek in case anyone didn't know.

[tecumseh]

iddee writes:
1) is the cleaning and polishing of cells in a certain area not considered moving the queen to that area? I would think the workers move her like you moving a body of water. Causing it to move on it's own to where you want it to go.

and then..
2) I have never reversed boxes more than once per year. In the spring only

and finally..
3) My personal opinion is to find a happy medium in all walks of life, and not go to the extreme in either direction.

tecumseh:
1) I like your analogy to water. And yes the cleaning and polishing is correct. At some point when a beekeeper can recognize these cleaned and polished frames by shifting these about you the beekeeper can do just exactly what Iddee seems to tagging as the workers moving the queen about in the brood nest. I would even suggest by strategic relocating these frames you can somewhat direct the brood nest expansion.

2) prior to the shb I would have reversed only once. now twice a year seems a better strategy.

3) beekeeping is first and foremost very local. find some process that will work for you where ever you keep bees.

ps... and very nicely sta†ed barry. I would add the 1-20 is more like 200 here.

[brooksbeefarm]

When i find swarm cells in a hive, i will look for the queen ( she will usually be in the bottom box) if they haven't swarmed already.If i fined her i will take her with 2 or 3 frames of bees and brood, and put her in a nuc. I then cut all but two nice fat queen cells out of the hive ( if there are several queen cells i will make nuc's with the others) and replace the frames that i took with foundation. This has worked for me many times,they won't leave without a queen and the foundation gives them something to do to get their mind off of swarmming. Sometimes you lose sometimes you win. Jack

ps> it's best if you take the old queen,bees and nuc to another yard 3 to 5 miles away.

[barry42001]

If your seeing queen cells, then in all probability, the swarming impulse is already in motion, is only a matter few days/ hours before them emerge as a swarm. If your using swarm cells as a basis for requeening your other colonies, or establishing another colony, then your reinforcing the swarming impulse, when you want to have the impulse inhibited a bit. our colonies should be at or near swarming strength,when approaching the major honey flow, but you should have provided extra supers for nectar storage thereby avoiding crowding in the brood chambers, and reversed the brood chambers. Also as stated previously, a upper entrance to have the field workers bypassing the brood chambers entirely, is also helpful.When your gong through your colonies, I have never see one that did not have queen cell cups, but only once did I see developing cells( larvae inside ). That particualr I was late ion supering. ( No I actrually don't drink alcoholic beverages at all )
Barry

[brooksbeefarm]

Barry, I don't understand how making a nuc with (swarm cells) queen cells from a hive that is about to swarm would be reinforcing the swarmming impulse? I have yards 60 miles from home and sometimes don't get to check them for two weeks at a time in the spring. I have many times found hives with capped queen cells and started nuc's with them, and have reversed swarming by taking the queen and leaving two queen cells and replacing the three frames i took with brood and bees, with foundation. The hive that was about to swarm were strong colonies and with no new brood to feed for another thirty some days, have produced alot of honey. The nuc's i started with the swarm cells have also made good queens that became good productive hives. Jack

[barry42001]

Of course your queens developed from a colony about to swarm, are perhaps the healthiest queens, feed the best, lavashed more attention then superceedure queens, of course they are fine queens. What I was saying is that if you open a colony see 6 - 12 queen cells all sealed, then that colony over produced queens. I totally get thjat swarming is the reproductive phase of honeybees, but the need to raise that many queens doesn't exist. either one will hatch and destroy the rest or and more likely there will be many otherwise useless afterswarms. Is this a trait that one wishes to reinforce, I don't think so. That they can be developed into productive colonies is no mystery they have the energy of a " swarmed " colony. and rapidly build up. I just wonder about the traits you may not want ( swarming tendency ). Just my rantings.
Barry

[brooksbeefarm]

Barry, i understand what you are saying i think, and it would be nice if we could get rid of the swarming trait by trying to breed it out. But in my opinion it's not going to happen, when they lose the swarming trait they will become extinct and i don't think we want that. I'm not trying to be argumentative, i must not be getting your point. Jack

[barry42001]

Jack,
I am not trying to do anything more then prevent the swarm to begin with, of course I am very much aware of the reproductive method of honeybees, but some strains are much more swarm prone then others. Alittle swarming is understandable, assuming that you were unable to monitor the colony for awhile during the spring build up, and initial nectar flows. I have seen honeybees in other yards literally swarm themself to death with one primary swarm, and 4 afterswarms the lest was little more then the size of a baseball. While these bees can be saved and reunited with weak colonies, to help rebuild them, the parent colony has suffered tremendously due to both loss of brood and loss of bees. My thinking is if your looking for increase then wait till your major honey flows are over, order a queen, make up a five frame nuc with drawn comb and a few frames of sealed brood and larvae. The loss of brood and worker force will largely go unnoticed and in fact with the comming of the end of the season with the more minor nectar flows, the parent colony doesn't need or even want all that worker force--alot of mouthes to feed with reduced resources. Just my thinking.
Barry

[sqkcrk]

One can reduce the swarming tendenct trait, but one will never completely remove that trait. Trying to do so would probably result in expression of undesirable traits. I don't know what those would be, but when Dr. Rothenbueller developed a strain of bees that was very good at not developing AFB, maybe I should say, were resistant to AFB, they turned out to be poor foragers. We don't want to sacrifice honey production for complete disease resistance. I don't anyway.

[brooksbeefarm]

I maintain 4 out yards 60 miles north of home and two yards at home, there are few races of bees that i haven't tried and yes they all will swarm. The Russian and carniolans were the worst for swarming that i've had, and now just buy carniolan queens for new blood so to speak, but i raise most of my queens from my survivor stock. Sometimes they will swarm no matter what you try to do, and when i find swarm cells i will take all but two and their queen (if she hasn't left) and start other colonies. For every queen i get this way saves me $20.00 and they are acclimated to my climate more than one from the east or west coast. Where i think we disagree is i don't think a queen from a swarm cell has a stronger swarm trait than a bought bred queen. I agree that we need to try to keep them from swarming and they will produce more honey if you do. Jack

[tecumseh]

Jack writes:
Where i think we disagree is i don't think a queen from a swarm cell has a stronger swarm trait than a bought bred queen.

tecumseh:
I agree. I suspect there is enough random stuff in regards to the genetic composition of any group of eggs from any given queen that there is not much hazard in this regards.

in regards to controlling swarming....for most newbeekeepers who are acquiring their first bees buying clipped queens would seem to be a good way to go.

[Iddee]

Do you really think a clipped queen will stop a colony from swarming?

In my opinion, they will just dispose of her when she leaves and hits the ground, then swarm twice with the new queens when they emerge.

[tecumseh]

oh no iddee the hive will still swarm without a doubt. the old queen will still leave the hive with the prime swarm and hit the ground perhaps 20 from the front of the hive and thereby 1) the prime swarm is easy to pick up and capture and 2) the exact hive that did swarm is easy to determine. with the swarming hive identified you can then use any number of means (like the simple removal of most of the queen cells, but typically leaving one or two) to keep whatever bees remain in the box. since I am always trying to raise a few queens anyway I typically split a swarming hive into X number of parts (each with at least one queen cell) and the problem becomes an opportunity.

clipping a queens wings (which usually cost about a buck from whomever you might buy queens from) is just a easy inexpensive means of 'controlling' swarming by anyone that might not know much about beekeeping. obviously part of my thinking here is simple is better.

in regards to 'setting up a brood nest' (planned manipulation) to limit swarming it seems to me the employment of a queen excluder and closing off the traditional bottom/front entrance works extremely well in this regards. the 'numbers' from the original study are EXTREMELY ROBUST. this manipulation very much limits crowding of the brood area and therefore also limits swarming (although this was not it's original intention of the study). since I was reared by two commercial beekeepers that taught me that a queen excluder was a honey excluder it was an 'old dogs can learn new tricks' moment for me. there is some judgement and timing that goes into this manipulation but it shouldn't be so difficult that most new beekeepers couldn't make this happen.