Does feeding cause swarming?

[whalers]

I am in my second year of beekeeping. Last year, even with a nuk as a starting place, my hive swarmed. This year, inspite of dividing the hive to create more space, my hive is swarming at this very moment. I am rapidly reaching the conclusion it is easier to collect and sell swarms than it is to collect and sell honey. I live in a northern climate, so feeding in the spring to bring up numbers is necessary, but I can'thelp but wonder if it is contributing to the swarming problem I have. I am interested in any feedback. Its going to be another year without honey. Thank you.

[AmericasBeekeeper]

Healthy hives cause swarming! Crowding and genetics have something to do with it or stress and survivability. It is the hive's nature to reproduce - swarm!

[ken rice]

The #1 reason for swarming is overcrowding,make sure to anticipate your bees needs and supply them with more room before they need it.If you wait until it is obvious the hive is crowded, your too late.Check your hives on a weekly basis. Look for any swarm cells.They will be along the bottom of the frame. Remove them. A hive will not swarm without without there being a new queen in the making.Provide adequate ventilation, Some people put spacers under the inner cover for better air flow.What was your method of dividing the hive.The more we know, the better we can understand what happened.

[whalers]

The only thing I could have done was be too late in providing space. I rotated the deeps after winter and then rotated again so they were back to their original position. I was to the point of gonig into the hive about every three days to scrape off swarm cells. I put spacers on the inner cover last season. I divided the hive to reduce numbers and create more space only three days after removing swarm cells. I think your comments are all on target but its pretty much what I already know. Obviously I'm not doing something right, but I dont want to be in the hive every other day removing swarm cells either. We just collected the swarm and now a friend of mine has a new hive. Might be time for me to get into the "new hive" business instead of honey.

[Andrew Dewey]

I heard last year that some of the nucs sold through our club swarmed within a day or two of installation into a 10 frame hive. Clearly the bees in those nucs had decided sometime earlier that they wanted to swarm. Feeding on its own doesn't cause swarming - you'll need to make periodic inspections to see what the bees are doing with the syrup you provide. If the area where the queen is supposed to lay gets filled with stores, that hive isn't going to stick around very long. On the other hand if they are consuming everything they get from you and are not putting any aside, you might not be feeding them enough. In the most general terms a 2nd year hive shouldn't need much in the way of feeding and I certainly would not feed them the way I do a new nuc or package.

[WillH]

In my limited experience I have come to the conclusion that swarming is due to genetics and little to do with other things. I only have 2 hives, one with Italian queen (MN Hygienic) that came with the package, marked and she is still there. The hive is crowded 2 deeps, 2 honey supers. I am going to put another honey super this weekend. I checked this hive last Saturday, not even a queen cup.

The other hive has the 2nd queen. I am not even sure what genetics she has, but from their dark bands someone told me they are carni/italian mix. I got them in a nuc last year. They killed the queen that came with the nuc and made a new queen that overwintered. They build up well in the spring and they killed the old queen and made a new one. Now the new one started laying and they are already building queen cups.

So my advise to you is change the genetics.

[beedeetee]

Personally I think that cutting swarm cells is a waste of time. At some point you will be a day late and they will already have decided to leave or you will miss one. I don't feed in the spring to increase numbers anymore. I will feed if they are out of food, but not to stimulate them. Unless you are selling bees, you want them to get to maximum size right about the start of your honey flow.

You can only keep 80-90% of hives from swarming unless you keep them overly weak. It is something that I have had to learn how to do. An older queen may be likely to swarm before a younger one. A month before the flow starts for me (mid April to mid May) I pay attention to the populations. When a hive is growing too fast, I will take 3-4 frames of capped brood (it has the fastest impact on both hives) and either take the old queen or put a new queen in a nuc with the frames that I have taken. This will impact population, but I will still get a good crop of honey from them. If I let them raise a queen or give them a new queen, I can take less brood from the old hive. If I want to leave the old queen, I take more brood.

Hive populations can change rapidly. A month or two ago I had a hive that was my weakest. She was doing okay, but had much less brood and hive population. Right now, at the start of the flow she leads what might the the strongest hive that I have. I didn't feed to stimulate that, and that's a queen that I need to keep my eye on for raising new queens.

If you let them swarm, you do have a good chance of not getting a crop of honey from them. If you use a nuc box and weaken them a little, you get more hives and more honey. Granted this takes experience, but that's what this hobby is all about.

[Michael Bush]

Feeding can CONTRIBUTE to swarming. With a small package being fed constantly it could be the primary cause. But feeding itself doesn't necessarily.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm

[whalers]

Camas Washington! I grew up in eastern Washington. Good to hear from someone in my part of the world. (Oregon) I like what you had to say. It validates a lot of things I have become very suspicious about. Central Oregon is high, (about 3100 feet where I live) and the season is short, so all my local teachers have taught me to feed to build numbers so the hive is ready to go when the flow starts. They say if you wait for the flow, the bees will use that time to build numbers and youi wont get any honey. Probably some truth to it but next season I'm going to back my feeding way off and see if I dont have better luck. Less feed should equal fewer numbers which will mean less chance of a swarm. Thanks for passing along your experience.

[whalers]

Excellant link! Thank you!

[beedeetee]

I actually grew up in NE Oregon and we had bees in the Grande Ronde valley when I was growing up. Our bees were at 3400 feet. There might be some truth to needing to feed to build up there to maximize your honey production (my dad didn't care about that at all, they were for pollination). You probably over did it this year. I would try to feed 4-6 weeks before your flow, but only enough that they have some capped above the brood nest in the frame corners or the two end frames in the top box.

Knowing when your flow starts during an average year is important for keeping good bees. You can adjust for years like this one and last year when the flow was a couple of weeks to a month behind. You need to know that if they have too much of a good thing, they will swarm.

I would actually start experimenting starting with under feeding rather than over feeding. You can't let them starve, but you will probably get a little honey. If they swarm just before the flow, you probably won't get any. Then adjust each year with your feeding to maximize your production based on your location. Again, you have to play the odds. You have to beekeep to maximize what 80% of hives would do and not try to base your management on the 5-10% that will swarm with 10 frames of bees.

If you over feed, make nucs. That's a good thing too.