Bee Keeping - Swarm Management And Increase

The excessive rearing of brood at the wrong season or increase in the number of colonies greatly reduces the surplus honey crop by consumption. The ideal to which all progressive bee keepers work, when operating simply for honey, is to stimulate brood rearing to prepare bees for gathering, to retard breeding when it is less desirable, and to prevent swarming. Formerly the measure of success in bee keeping was the amount of increase by swarming, but this is now recognized as being quite the contrary of success.

The stimulation of brood rearing in the spring, however, makes it more likely that swarming will occur; so that the operator must counteract the tendency to swarm. This is especially true in comb-honey production. Very few succeed in entirely preventing swarming, but by various methods the situation can be largely controlled.

When a swarm issues, it usually first settles on a limb of a tree or bush near the apiary. It was formerly common to make a noise by beating pans or ringing bells in the belief that this causes the swarm to settle. There is no foundation for such action on the part of the bee keeper. If the bees alight on a small limb that can be spared it may simply be sawed off and the bees carried to the hive and thrown on a sheet or hive cover in front of the entrance. If the limb can not be cut, the swarm can be shaken off into a box or basket on a pole and hived. If the bees light on the trunk of a tree or in some inaccessible place they can first be attracted away by a comb, preferably containing unsealed brood. In these manipulations it is not necessary to get all the bees, but if the queen is not with those which are put into the hive the bees will go into the air again and join the cluster.

If a queen is clipped as recommended under "Spring management" (p. 29) the swarm will issue just the same, but the queen, not being able to fly, will simply wander about on the ground in front of the hive, where she can be caught and caged. The parent colony can then be removed to a new stand and a new hive put in its place. The bees will soon return and the queen can be freed among them as they enter. The field bees on returning will enter the new hive with the swarm, thus decreasing still more the parent colony and making a second swarm less probable. To make sure of this, however, all queen cells except one good one can be removed soon after the swarm issues. Another method of preventing second swarms is to set the old hive beside the swarm and in a week move the old hive to another place. The field bees of the parent colony then join the swarm and the parent colony is so much reduced that a second swarm does not issue.

To hold a swarm it is desirable to put one frame containing healthy unsealed brood in the new hive. The other frames may contain full sheets or starters of foundation. Usually comb-honey supers or surplus bodies for extracting frames will have been put on before swarming occurs. These are given to the swarm on the old stand and separated from the brood chamber by queen-excluding perforated zinc. In three or four days the perforated zinc may be removed if desired.

When clipping the queen's wing is not practiced, swarms may be prevented from leaving by the use of queen traps of perforated zinc (fig. 6). These allow the workers to pass out, but not drones or queens, which, on leaving the entrance, pass up to an upper compartment from which they can not return. These are also used for keeping undesirable drones from escaping, and the drones die of starvation. When a swarm issues from a hive provided with a queen trap the queen goes to the upper compartment and remains there until released by the bee keeper. The workers soon return to the hive. When the operator discovers the queen outside, the colony may be artificially swarmed to prevent another attempt at natural swarming. A queen trap should not be kept on the hive all the time for fear the old queen may be superseded and the young queen prevented from flying out to mate.

ARTIFICAL SWARMING

If increase is desired, it is better to practice some method of artificial swarming and to forestall natural swarming rather than be compelled to await the whims of the colonies. The situation should be under the control of the bee keeper as much as possible. The bees, combs, and brood may be divided into two nearly equal parts and a queen provided for the queenless portion; or small colonies, called nuclei, may be made from the parent colony, so reducing its strength that swarming is not attempted. These plans are not as satisfactory as shaken swarms, since divided colonies lack the vigor of swarms.

A good method of artificially swarming a colony is to shake most of the bees from the combs into another hive on the old stand with starters (narrow strips) of foundation. The hive containing the brood with some bees still adhering is then moved to a new location. If receptacles for surplus honey have been put on previously, as they generally should be, they should now be put over the artificial swarm separated from the brood compartment by perforated zinc.

This method of artificially swarming (usually called by bee keepers "shook" swarming) should not be practiced too early, since natural swarming may take place later. The colony should first have begun its preparations for swarming. The method is particularly useful in comb-honey production. The bees may be prevented from leaving the hive by the use of a drone trap (fig. 6) or by putting in one frame containing unsealed brood. Some bee keepers prefer using full sheets of foundation or even drawn combs for the artificial swarm, but narrow strips of foundation have some advantages. By using narrow strips the queen has no cells in which to lay eggs for a time, thus reducing brood rearing, but, since by the time artificial swarming is practiced the profitable brood rearing is usually over, this is no loss but rather a gain. There are also in the brood compartment no cells in which the gathering workers can deposit fresh honey, and they consequently put it in the supers. Gradually the combs below are built out and brood rearing is increased. Later the colony is allowed to put honey in the brood combs for its winter supply. If no increase is desired, the bees which emerge from the removed brood combs may later be united with the artificial swarm and by that time there will usually be little danger of natural swarming.

Artificial swarming can readily be combined with the shaking treatment for bee diseases, thus accomplishing two objects with one manipulation. If disease is present in the parent colony, only strips of foundation should be used and the colony should be confined to the hive with a queen and drone trap and not with a frame of brood.

PREVENTION OF SWARMING

Unless increase is particularly desired, both natural and artificial swarming should be done away with as far as possible, so that the energy of the bees shall go into the gathering of honey. Since crowded and overheated hives are particularly conducive to swarming, this tendency may be largely overcome by giving plenty of ventilation and additional room in the hive. Shade is also a good preventive of swarming. Extra space in the hive may be furnished by adding more hive bodies and frames or by frequent extracting, so that there may be plenty of room for brood rearing and storage at all times. These manipulations are, of course, particularly applicable to extracted-honey production.

To curb the swarming impulse frequent examinations of the colonies (about every week or 10 days during the swarming season) for the purpose of cutting out queen cells is a help, but this requires considerable work, and since some cells may be overlooked, and particularly since it frequently fails in spite of the greatest care, it is not usually practiced. Requeening with young queens early in the season, when possible, generally prevents swarming.

Swarming is largely due to crowded brood chambers, and since eggs laid immediately before and during the honey flow do not produce gatherers, several methods have been tried of reducing the brood. The queen may either be entirely removed or be caged in the hive to prevent her from laying. In either event the bees will usually build queen cells to replace her, and these must be kept cut out. These plans would answer the purpose very well were it not for the fact that queenless colonies often do not work vigorously. Under most circumstances these methods can not be recommended. A better method is to remove brood about swarming time and thus reduce the amount. There are generally colonies in the apiary to which frames of brood can be given to advantage.

In addition to these methods various nonswarming devices have been invented, and later a nonswarming hive so constructed that there is no opportunity for the bees to form a dense cluster. The breeding of bees by selecting colonies with less tendency to swarm has been suggested.