Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: davers on May 14, 2017, 01:39:13 pm
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Much has been said about the ways to prevent swarming. I came out of winter with 3 double deeps. I have slatted racks and reversed the 2 of the 3 deeps in early spring(March) and put a couple empty frames in some of the brood area deeps. The queens were 2 yrs old. They all swarmed multiple times the end of March and April. It seems like these methods, slatted racks, reversing isn't the answer to prevent swarming. Just my take. Maybe I will have to replace the queens every year
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Swarming to me is a combination of hive population, room in the hive and food supply at the time.
We run 8fr full depth and with a single brood box, QX and super. In Spring when bees are on Canola we may remove 3 fr of brood plus, a 2fr shake of field bees from the super into a 5 fr nuc. If the super has plenty of honey then add another one under the honey.
It is not fool proof but you have to provide a lot of room to reduce swarming.
Also timing, it is nice to get this done before the bees start forming queen cells to swarm of. Once the are forming cells it is harder to change their mind.
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Swarming is a complicated topic. Simply reversing probably won't be enough. Some checkerboard but it's not something I've been in a position to do. I generally reverse, add supers, and open the brood nest. And if that isnt enough to keep ahead of them I'd make a split/nuc.
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lol - I give up on trying to stop them from swarming, now I just try to catch them :)
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Swarming means your bees have the right kind of survival instincts. We want them to perpetuate the species.
I do what GSF does and try to catch them.
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I try to open the brood nest a give them more room. This year was an early spring and I got a a little behind. I keep a couple swarm traps by my garage and when I see bee activity by them I know that it's time to walk around and look for a swarm. I just got in from catching #17 for the year. :grin: Only 2 decided the new home I gave them wasn't good enough. :sad:
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We are migratory bee keepers with our bees never home, anything from 10 - 80 km away in spring, catching is not an option so we work hard at prevention. Commercially swarming is very expensive as it takes 6 weeks for the hive to return to full population for honey production.
Hives that swarm will be a super of honey behind those who don't.
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I do what GSF does.
I set out lots of traps, lots of different sizes to catch the ones that do swarm.
Remember swarming is the bees main goal. Not making honey or lots of bees, it is swarming. They are super organisms. It takes a swarm to reproduce.
Jim