Swarming is the most natural thing a honey bee colony does, and one of the most disruptive things it can do to a beekeeper’s season. This category covers swarm biology, prevention strategies, and the management techniques that actually work at different scales of operation — from a handful of hives in the garden to a larger commercial operation where time per colony is limited. It also covers the related topic of making increase: using the biology of swarming to produce new colonies deliberately, rather than losing bees over the fence.
Understanding why colonies swarm — and what the decision looks like from inside the hive — makes swarm management considerably less stressful. The posts here try to cover both the biology and the practicalities, including the queen rearing opportunities that swarm season presents and how to use splits and nucleus colonies as part of a planned management system rather than as a damage-limitation exercise.
Honey bees have been around a lot longer than humans, and the way they organise their colonies and their lives seems to work very well for them, even if it sometimes seems a little strange to us. They have a system involving three types of adult bee (the queen, workers, and drones), three types of … Read more
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-walrus-and-the-honey-bee/id1788182933?i=1000706136759 There are plenty of bad things to say about losing swarms from honey production colonies, but I’m particularly interested in the big one – loss of honey crop. Many people cheer themselves up after losing swarms by reflecting on how a brood break will benefit the bees, and how it’s a wonderful natural phenomenon, … Read more
The snow that had covered the ground here in Manchester, UK, has melted, and temperatures are set to be above freezing for the foreseeable future. By which I mean, the next nine days that my weather app sees. And we all know how reliable they are. But still, I’m optimistic; the days are getting longer, … Read more
Yes, I know. This is not a new subject. Everybody in the warmer parts of the UK will be thinking, reading, writing and talking about swarming, and how to navigate swarm season. This year, in my area, it is a bit tricky because the weather is still pretty awful (lots of rain, not warm) but … Read more
You could write a book on the subject of ‘how to handle swarm season’, and several people have. In the one thousand or so words allotted to this blog post, I shall therefore have to miss out quite a bit. Nevertheless, given the popularity of this subject and the time of year, I shall dive … Read more
One of my most-read articles concerns a form of swarm prevention that first saw light 131 years ago in the American Bee Journal. I’m not convinced that mine is even a good article, but anything to do with preventing or controlling swarming ranks highly whenever I do polls on beekeeping. It appears that beekeepers are … Read more
After three days in a row of beekeeping, I found myself having a ‘power nap’. It’s hard work after a winter of inactivity. My son, the mole, has been my superstar assistant, which is remarkable because until a week ago, he was terrified of bees. He has faced his fears and seems to be enjoying … Read more
I’ve written about swarming quite a bit in the past. I’m not sure how many people who read my stuff are beginners, but I’m going to assume it’s not the majority. You probably all have your ways of dealing with preventing swarms or controlling them once the bees have decided to make queen cells. In … Read more