4/1/2008 swarm

[shughes]

Caught a really nice swarm from my strongest hive today. I split this hive 2 weeks ago hoping to reduce the swarm urge by pulling out the original queen and making some 5 frame nucs out of some of the swarm cells but the virgin queens in the main hive swarmed anyway. This is the 2nd swarm from this hive. 1st one was last week. They drew out a complete super from foundation in 10 days the first week of March. Very nice hive and glad I caught them to keep the genetics flowing.

http://hugheshoney.com/gallery/v/swarms/swarm.jpg.html
http://hugheshoney.com/gallery/v/swarms/swarm_hive.jpg.html

[Jeffzhear]

They didn't make it easy for you to shake them off of the branch into the box, did they! Glad you got them...:)

[shughes]

Actually it was an easy one...the tree was very flexible (couple inches in diameter) so i just climbed a 8 foot ladder, pulled the top towards the ground and dumped most of them on the hive body. The queen did fly but I was able to pick her off the tree..she went right back to the same spot. Once the queen was in they all started marching.

[bleta12]

That first picture reminds me of a swarm last year. There were more than 5 virgins on that swarm.
Gilman

[3gooddogs]

Is there any way this swarm could have been avoided?
Nikki

[shughes]

Nikki,

If I had to do it over again I would have taken the three deep configuration and split them almost evenly with exception of the original queen deep would get more foundation and give the extra frames to the 2nd new deep of the other two original deeps.

This hive has swarmed 4 times in the past week. I have caught 3 of the 4 swarms. One is still 50ft up in the tree which occurred three days ago. So I have 5 new hives from this single hive if I count the two splits I made before they swarmed.

I made the splits on 3/22 with capped swarm cells. Yesterday after I caught the 4th swarm I noticed more capped swarm cells on the bottom of the frames. I originally noticed the queens piping on 3/25. I guess its possible the 1st emerging queen became mated, started laying quickly and they decided to swarm again for me to see capped cells on 4/6 but that schedule would be tight. I also heard piping queens last week the day before the first two swarms.

So to answer your question...it might have been prevented if I would have thrown a deep of foundation on top or maybe put some empty frames in the brood nest.