swarm control

[Clayton]

For newbeeies and lurkers. List 5 ways of swarm control (that you use)?

Clay

[Dragon's gold]

Ummmm, well? Im a newbee so having just gotten my first two hives, I haven't gotten to that stage as of yet. From my reading though, it would seem that "acceptable" swarm control procedures would be:
1) removal of queen cells (not suggested as once this begins, swarming is virtually inevitable)
2) replacing frames with queen cells with new frames to give more room for the hive (with the addition of adding a super for more brood space) and placing these frames in a nuc or empty hive with adequate workers to hatch the queens. This-from what I have read is preferable as the new colony can then be used as a new hive or can be recombined to it's parent hive.
3)see 2, but placing the queen in a differant hive and let current hive raise new queen.
4)removal of the queen. This-if Im not mistaken- will simulate the process of swarming (no pheromones) without the actual swarm.
Thats all I can think of right now.... please correct or add to this list any I missed or goofed on.
-Bill

[The Honey House]

Clayton
I suppose that this applies only to folks who have hives that are swarmy! Fortunately
my hives never ever swarm. Any swarm I see in the yard MUST have come from some one elses hive!

splits or nucs and then I super early.

------------------
Dave Verville
Fremont, NH USA

[droneman]

make sure broodnest is not honeybound check for swarm cells make sure there is plenty of ventalation at least two deeps for brood be ready to ad honey supers treat for mites and foul brood

[uncletom]

Is reversing the brood supers still an accepted practice? Cutting out queen cells can work but as said in a post above, the urge to swarm has already started. Clipped Queens? But does that really work? I never tried it.

ut

[Clayton]

Is reversing the brood supers still an accepted practice?

reply:

Yes.

Clay

[garyl]

If they do get honey bound, still not clear if I can store frames outside freezing them. If possible, I'd give them to a weaker hive, but otherwise, I'd love to save them for fall and give them to the bees for winter stores. My cellar is quite cool and dry, so was thinking of putting deep supers in plastic bags...will it work or will the pollen mold and ruin everything?

[loggermike]

In California and the South we shake em.
----Mike (shaking bees tomorrow to fill deadouts)

[Michael Bush]

>If they do get honey bound, still not clear if I can store frames outside freezing them.

Freezing will work.

>If possible, I'd give them to a weaker hive, but otherwise, I'd love to save them for fall and give them to the bees for winter stores.

Why not leave them on a good strong hive so the moths don't get them and rearrange them in the fall. Just move them up to the outside frame of a super, where they don't want to draw it anyway.

If you have different size supers than brood boxes you could run an unlimited brood nest and move them to the top brood box. Or just extract them and give them back.

>My cellar is quite cool and dry, so was thinking of putting deep supers in plastic bags...will it work or will the pollen mold and ruin everything?

Cool will cause it to crystalize sooner. I think the plastic bags may cause mold. It depends on how cool and if the bag gets condensation on it. If it doesn't get condensation it might not mold, but they keep the best on a hive.


[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited April 08, 2003).]

[odfrank]

I'm such a beemaster, my bees never swarm. I think the swarms I find hanging around my yard are attracted in by the smell of my solar wax melter and bait hives.

[garyl]

Hi Michael, part of the problem is that these frames are from the brood hives of a couple of died-off winterkilled hives, and are already pretty much hardened sugar, and tons of nice pollen. The hives were too weak to make it thu the winter here in NH, but it hurts me to whaste the stores if I can give it back for NEXT winter. Seems I must keep it segregated due to exposure to winter meds for mites and AFB. I can "extract" (scrape by hand and try to salvage as much syrup as possible) and give back in the fall, but hate to whaste all that drawn comb. Again, my only concern is not to let the bees mix any "contaminated" stuff with honey in new supers...if it's capped and in deep supers above empty shallow supers, will the shallows be safe for human consumption? If not I'll take my chances on storing the frames for fall some other way. Thanks