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 the bees have got on with building strong colonies. The second the sun appears, some of them will be off.
Here are some simple thoughts and tricks, from a simple walrus, about getting through the next busy months. We are moving from the relative quiet of winter to the full-on, never enough time, swarm season. Throw in a bit of queen rearing, and even a spring harvest a little later on, and you have a recipe for busy beekeepers.
Bees Swarm – Get Over It
The first thing I’d like to say on this matter is that, although we can do certain things to reduce it, swarming is pretty much the purpose of a strong colony in late April to mid-June in my area. Reproduction is one of the main points of life; passing on genetics to the next generation. Therefore, if your bees make queen cells, it does not mean you are a terrible beekeeper.
Marking and Clipping
We try to mark and clip all mated queens. Marking is not really needed, but if you are holding a queen to clip her wing, you may as well put a coloured dot on her thorax while you are at it. I find the dark queens hardest to see, so marking can speed things up if I need to find her – but there are not many times when finding her is absolutely necessary.
Clipping the queen is very useful, and (as far as I understand) it does not cause distress to her. If your bees swarm with an unclipped queen, you will discover queen cells on several brood frames in the hive, no queen (or maybe a virgin), and a large swathe of worker bees will have gone. It may not look like so many have gone, but they have. This can seriously mess up your ability to make a good honey crop, not to mention the nuisance caused by the swarm to neighbours/the public.
After the bees swarm with a clipped queen, everything is the same EXCEPT the worker bees returned to the hive, so the honey crop is not in jeopardy. And your neighbours don’t want to sue you.
Before They Go
I’ve written lots about swarm prevention (as have countless others) but here are some things that delay or deter the building of swarm cells:
Genetics
Selective breeding from non-swarmy stock can reduce the propensity to swarm, so anyone who makes queens has an opportunity to steer their bees down this pathway. You can’t get rid of it, though. Even the least swarm-prone bees still have a go at it around 15–20% of the time. With your average, run-of-the-mill type of bee, it’s over 50%.
Space
As the colony rapidly grows in spring and into summer, they need space. That means space in the brood nest for the queen to lay, and space in the hive for a rapidly increasing population. Oh, and space for nectar, of course. We tend to leave only one or sometimes two frames of stores in the brood box (Langstroth). We also pull out combs of sealed brood and replace them with frames of empty comb or foundation if the colony is running out of laying space. The sealed brood + bees can be used to make nucs, boost weaker colonies in the same apiary, or maybe make a cell builder.
Pre-emptive Splits
Many people add space by carrying out some form of ‘split’ before the bees get into swarming-mode, or at least, before queen cells appear. A Demaree is a vertical split, which can work well (Manley said you need good weather, though). Taking brood to make up nucs is another way, but it is best to add a mated queen to the nuc, rather than do a ‘walk away split’. This means using over-wintered queens or early imported queens from warmer places. A Demaree keeps the foraging force strong, whereas removing brood and bees weakens the colony a little, so it’s a fine balance.
Young Queens
They don’t seem to last as long as they used to, so most people have young queens anyway. As queens get older, their colonies become more likely to swarm. We move queens in their third season to a nucleus colony (or squish them) and put a young queen in the main hive. This season I have found five yellow-dot queens (going into their third season); two are going to be used for breeding, the others have been re-queened with red-dot queens that I took through winter in mini-plus hives.
Nectar Flow
Often the bees try to swarm before a big nectar flow, but once the flow has started they turn their attention to foraging and go off the idea of swarming. Nothing is certain, especially in beekeeping, but theoretically, if they have plenty of space and a flow is ongoing, the urge to swarm subsides. However, if they pile in the nectar and plug up the brood chamber so that the queen cannot lay, swarming is back on the agenda.
Queen Cells In The Hive
When you find swarm cells, the first question is, “has the queen gone?”. As a rule of thumb (always dangerous to have those), if the cells are sealed, she’s gone. In my experience, no eggs plus queen cells = no queen. However, eggs plus queen cells might also mean no queen, so it’s good to check. If a cell has emerged, there is a virgin queen in the hive (probably). Occasionally, we spot them, often not. At that point, it is game over – just knock down any other cells and leave them to it.
Not Swarmed Yet
If the queen has not left yet, we take her away in a nucleus hive with some brood, stores, and bees. The parent colony is left with one queen cell. I have tried leaving two, and they swarmed with the first virgin to emerge. I have also tried releasing several virgins from ripe queen cells, and that didn’t go well either. Yesterday I found my first swarmed colony (a nuc) and I released a virgin from one cell (she was ready) and removed the other cells. I have spare queens anyway, should that not work out.
I’m not really a fan of artificial swarms like Pagden, and much prefer to remove a nuc with the queen. She will soon lay up the frames in the nuc, which can be re-combined with the parent colony to make up for the gap in egg-laying while they make a new queen.
They Have Swarmed
If you clip queens, as long as the sealed cells have not started to emerge yet, you have not lost your bees. The queen, in my case at least, is always gone. The options are to let them make a queen, or remove all cells and give them a queen of your choice. In practise, it comes down to whether I have queens available, and usually, I don’t. My queens are available in June/July, whereas swarming is in April/May (getting earlier each season).
If I let them make a new queen, I always tell myself that I will change her later on, with one raised by me. Occasionally, that even happens, but not always, so then I have done the thing I always say not to do – make new queens from swarm cells.
I have managed to lose a swarm or two despite clipping queens. In such cases, the swarm contains one or more virgin queens. This can happen if you leave more than one queen cell – it’s easy to miss them. My success with re-hived ‘cast’ swarms is not great, but at least they can draw out some nice comb.
Queen Rearing
A colony that wants to swarm has everything ready to make queens. A neat trick is to remove the queen, destroy the cells, wait four or five days, destroy any new cells, then add a frame of grafted larvae from your selected breeder-queen. They will draw out the cells, and you can leave one for them, taking the rest to be put into mating nucs. The bees made your cell builder for you, but you controlled the queen’s genetics. That one was from Peter Little, who knew a little about honey bees.
Effects of Bad Weather
Occasionally, the worst conditions for swarming in Spring/Early Summer are periods of wet weather for a few days, followed by a sunny day, and this pattern repeats. The bees are confined to their quarters during the rain, and get up to mischief (make queen cells), then head for the tress on the sunny day.
However, during prolonged periods of poor weather, the bees may not be able to forage for weeks. This could lead to a dearth of pollen in the colony. When this happens, bees will often tear down queen cells and forget about swarming. They will cannibalise eggs and open brood. This is not a recommended method of swarm prevention!
Keep It Simple
As with most things in beekeeping, the best course of action is usually doing things that are simple, repeatable, and work. Practise makes perfect, they say, but does anyone really ever reach perfection?