Did two walk-away splits today . . . the beginning of the end of the season

[specialkayme]

I took two of my 5 hives and did walk away splits today. One was four mediums deep of brood before the split, and the other was one deep and three shallows of brood.

I was hoping to do the splitting now before the August swarm season starts. Feeding will start in the middle of August for those hives that don't have ample stores.

Now lets just hope that all of them start to build up.

[FRAMEshift]

This is the first I've heard of a swarm season in August in NC.   There is a dearth in August so why are they swarming? 

We did a split in Carrboro in late June with the idea of breaking the brood cycle and minimizing the number of foragers during the worst of the dearth.  Do you think we still have a swarm risk?

[specialkayme]

There are usually two different swarm dates (on average) for every location. One is the very successful spring swarm date, where you can make splits from and capture some great swarms, and the other is the late summer/early fall swarm date. If the hive does well throughout the summer, by late summer or early fall they are doing well and are ready to swarm, so they usually try to push out a swarm in order to reproduce before the fall fully sets in. These swarms are usually smaller, weaker, and arn't as sucessful on average. But it's natures way of trying to reproduce those hives that are doing well. Here is a chart of what the population of a hive is over the course of the year:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bhts1c9lywY/SMAEzskEtxI/AAAAAAAAAX0/kDJrNyha-0M/s1600-h/Honeybee+Population.gif

This is really just an average, but good to know. If you see the to distinct humps, the first in may and the second in August. After that the populations dwindle a little. That's due to swarms.

So to try and find your two swarm dates, this website is very helpful:

http://www.drobbins.net/bee's/blooms.html

I went through and found that most of the swarms in my area occur around April 1st for the big swarm, and mid August for the second swarm.

In order to avoid the second swarm, just make sure the hives arn't booming in August. I lost two hives to late swarms last year, they swarmed and didn't leave enough for the home hive to be able to make it throught he winter, and I"m willing to bet the swarm (although I didn't catch it) wasn't able to build up fast enough either.

[jajtiii]

As it so happens, I just opened up my best hive two days ago and discovered 10 swarm cells. Didn't seem to matter that they had plenty of room to expand and I had actually robbed them twice earlier in the year to make Nuc's for new queens and once to get a frame for a swarm that I was picking up. I only went into the hive for fun, just to see how they were doing (and I was interested to see how much of the honey stores they had eaten into.) Add to all of this that we are smack in the middle of a dearth and a serious drought and I cannot see what genetic code would tell them to cast a swarm.

Reading the post above, I guess it makes more sense. They were going to cast a small swarm, just because they could, and risk it.

Well, I wasn't aware of the later swarm date (but will be heading out to my other established hives tomorrow), so I simply split them, giving both hives equal number of queen cells (and splitting up the resources too). I really didn't want any more hives for this year, but figured it was the only logical thing to do (although I found larvae, I did not find eggs or queen - since 4 of the cells were torn open, my main queen might have already split - or maybe the workers tore them open because they had a problem? Who knows. )

How do you make sure 'your hives aren't booming in august' (or july, in my case) to prevent this type of swarm?

[specialkayme]

(although I found larvae, I did not find eggs or queen - since 4 of the cells were torn open, my main queen might have already split - or maybe the workers tore them open because they had a problem? Who knows. )

Were the queen cells destroyed on the side?

It's possible you had a virgin queen running around (sometimes looks like a worker), destroying the swarm cells but didn't get to the last one yet. But in any event, if you divided up the hive, just make sure one of them is in the same location as it used to be. That way if the queen was out on a mating flight (probably too early, but who knows) she'll be able to make it back.

How do you make sure 'your hives aren't booming in august' (or july, in my case) to prevent this type of swarm?

Practice mostly. I still have a difficulty with swarm prevention in general. It's a challenging area.

I find you have to strike a balance. Come July you need a strong hive so you can ensure they will collect enough resources and overwinter, but you don't want a hive that's too strong or they swarm.

[jajtiii]

I am still not sure what you mean.

I don't do anything to my established hives. They are on their own after the first year. So, are you saying that I should have gone in and taken brood or resources, if I had made the judgement that they were 'strong' in early July? Are you saying that I should go in and weaken them, to some extent?

[FRAMEshift]

I am still not sure what you mean.

I don't do anything to my established hives. They are on their own after the first year. So, are you saying that I should have gone in and taken brood or resources, if I had made the judgement that they were 'strong' in early July? Are you saying that I should go in and weaken them, to some extent?

There are some "frame shifting" methods that can prevent swarms.  In a Lang hive, you can use checkerboarding, the placement of alternating drawn empty comb directly above the brood nest. This tells the bees they don't have enough reserves to swarm.  This is generally done in early spring.  Might work in August as well.  Another method is brood opening, where you add empty frames (not drawn) to the brood nest.  No more than every third frame in the pattern BBEBBEBBE where B is brood and E is empty.  In the spring I would do this gradually so you don't get chill brood.  In the late summer you probably wouldn't have that problem.  In a TBH or a long hive, you can use brood opening, but obviously not checkerboarding, since you can't put frames above the brood nest. 

Actually, we have a long hive that is exploding right now.  We are adding empty foundationless frames to the brood nest one at a time so they don't get too excited about taking a trip.

[specialkayme]

I don't do anything to my established hives. They are on their own after the first year.

Are you saying you don't manage your bees at all? You just take care of them the first year, and then do nothing? If that's the case, any management plan would fall on deaf ears. If you are managing them, then I don't understand your post.

So, are you saying that I should have gone in and taken brood or resources, if I had made the judgement that they were 'strong' in early July? Are you saying that I should go in and weaken them, to some extent?

The methods that FRAMEshift said are good examples of things you may consider. Some prefer to checkerboard, others to open the brood nest, others prefer the MDA Splitter technique. The jury is still out as to which one I prefer, I havn't had too much experience with any one method to claim it's my favorite.

Others choose not to manage, and when they produce swarm cells, the just create splits. Or even still, split them before the swarm cells start. Those are options as well.

And still others may choose to just let them swarm, capture the swarms you can, and move on from there.

All of the above work well with spring swarms, but the strategy is different for fall swarms (or late summer). Since those swarms are smaller, and don't have as much time to build up before the winter, they often can't survive as a stand alone hive for very long (unless you have a large late summer flow). For that reason, I've found letting them swarm is the worst option. It weakens both hives, reducing chances that the swarm or the old colony can make it through the winter. Waiting for the swarm cells and producing splits can have the same disadvantages.

But, if the hive is strong enough to do a split, do it early before they are ready to swarm. You'll have better chances overwintering both hives than you would letting them grow big, swarm, and try to get half the colony through the winter.

Does that make it a little more clear?

[jajtiii]

Yes, that helps. Thanks.

Due to the surprise of my strong hive, I went out to check my second best hive today. These gals were simply sitting on a nice bit of honey/pollen for winter and busily raising young. No sign of a swarm.

Outside of a possible genetic inclination to swarm, the main thing different between the non-swarmer and the swarmer was that I took a total of 5 frames of brood from the non-swarmer in Spring (over a period of 6 weeks), to catch a few  swarms and do cut-out's. They have fully drawn and started to utilize all but one of these deep frames, but the rest of the frames in the double deep are working full time.

This 'robbing', probably created a checkerboard effect. I will probably do that more often, on the hives that I want to keep the queen working on, going forward (at least pull some frames, for other tasks in the yard._