swarm control

Swarm Control

Sooner or later, you will wish to carry out some form of manipulation to prevent loss of a swarm. Standard methods will sometimes fail, leaving the beekeeper wondering why a lot of bees have disappeared. Some information given here is rarely found elsewhere.

Methods of swarm control are found in many places, so what is covered will be particular to the Drawhive or to issues not often discussed properly.

Following are the manipulations required to make an artificial swarm, from a Drawhive. The practicalities can then be easily modified for other methods. All the usual methods, which don’t require the hive to be moved, can be used and there is no need to dismantle the hive. Because it is so easy to access a bottom brood chamber, splits into a top brood box, over supers, are very useful as they save on equipment.

Assuming you want the queen to stay on site, you need the usual spare hive and frames, plus another container to take the frame with the queen on it, such as a nucleus box. Having put the frame with the queen safely to one side, arrange the frames between the Drawhive and spare brood box, as required and then return the frame with the queen. This is just the same as normal practice except that you don't dismantle the hive and switch brood boxes.

If the queen can't be found, she could have been on the excluder, so close up and leave a while for her to move back on the frames. You could remove any food combs and separate the remaining frames into pairs. She will then likely be found between a pair of frames. Open up again with the minimum smoke. If she still can’t be found, and you are sure they haven't swarmed, then a shook swarm can be made with a Taranov board. It is likely you have lost a swarm if there are sealed queen cells and no eggs.

Be aware that if swarm cells have been raised, then the swarming urge may sometimes be retained after your swarm preventative measure. This seems strongest in the older bees, which will be concentrated on the original site.

If just brood is left behind, cull to one queen cell and see they don’t raise any more, or they may swarm with the first virgin.

If the queen is left behind and young larvae are present, check after three or four days for queen cells. Should any cells be raised then more drastic treatment is needed to break the swarming urge.

For this, the queen and brood is moved away, either to a nucleus hive, or a spare body above a split board, with entrance, on top of another colony. When making this up shake in extra bees, in addition to those adhering to the frames, as there will be a strong drift back to the parent hive. If put on top of the original hive the older bees may join the queen and defeat the object.

A frame of sealed and mature brood is placed in the parent hive. This must be carefully checked to ensure there are no eggs or young larvae on it. If not from the original colony, shake any bees off this frame.

Within a week, the bees with the queen should tear down any queen cells , the swarming urge will be broken and the queen and brood can be returned to the original hive.

Of the methods which involve splitting the brood into a second top brood chamber, the two queen system is a particularly practical and potentially rewarding plan.

For those with few hives, the Snelgrove board is also worth considering.

These methods come into their own because with the Drawhive it is very easy to monitor the bottom brood chamber.