So 80% of my first year hives swarmed. Epic fail. Had some questions. First, I did want to point out some silver linings (maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better) -
- all happened after the honey flow. No loss of production, and I do have the goal of increasing my hive numbers
- less (currently) bees in the hive to consume stores
- swarms are set to draw comb like bandits. My swarms drew a box full of comb in two weeks tops. I split another one of my hives at the beginning of April, and it took until the end of May for them to fill out the box I gave them.
- no wax to replace in the parent hive as with a split
- less "delay to lay". I know the books say that swarms occur when the queen cells are capped. I haven't found this to be the case. My hives swarmed either right before or right after the queens hatched. I know because they hatched when I was doing inspections, then I had swarms for several days afterwards. In this scenario, the new queen is up and laying in 11-14 days. Add 16 days to that for a split.
- caught a virgin queen and successfully introduced her to a queenless hive that I was about to write off. She's now laying.
Obviously, the HUGE caveat to the comments above is that you actually catch the swarm. I caught all of mine.
So I've read up repeatedly on swarm prevention. I think I've got the early spring stuff down - hive will likely be honeybound and you need to either give foundationless or empty drawn comb.
During the season, what SPECIFIC indicator do you look for, when do you take action, and what do you do?
Here's what I do -
High population = more honey
Hive check -> High population = yes! I'm happy
Hive check -> High population = yes! I'm happy
Hive check -> High population = yes! I'm happy
Hive check -> swarm cells -> crap!!!!!
Find old queen (if I can) -> simulate swarm with three frames each of brood, pollen, and honey.
I'm catching them after it's too late and need to do better. I've heard a lot about no room to lay and providing empty drawn comb, which I am short on. In that scenario though, you're not going to throw out three frames of brood, pollen, or whatever. What do you do with what you take out? Make a split? If so, aren't you artificially swarming your hive anyway? And maybe that brood is about to hatch out and you'll be fine.
Help. Thanks.
- all happened after the honey flow. No loss of production, and I do have the goal of increasing my hive numbers
- less (currently) bees in the hive to consume stores
- swarms are set to draw comb like bandits. My swarms drew a box full of comb in two weeks tops. I split another one of my hives at the beginning of April, and it took until the end of May for them to fill out the box I gave them.
- no wax to replace in the parent hive as with a split
- less "delay to lay". I know the books say that swarms occur when the queen cells are capped. I haven't found this to be the case. My hives swarmed either right before or right after the queens hatched. I know because they hatched when I was doing inspections, then I had swarms for several days afterwards. In this scenario, the new queen is up and laying in 11-14 days. Add 16 days to that for a split.
- caught a virgin queen and successfully introduced her to a queenless hive that I was about to write off. She's now laying.
Obviously, the HUGE caveat to the comments above is that you actually catch the swarm. I caught all of mine.
So I've read up repeatedly on swarm prevention. I think I've got the early spring stuff down - hive will likely be honeybound and you need to either give foundationless or empty drawn comb.
During the season, what SPECIFIC indicator do you look for, when do you take action, and what do you do?
Here's what I do -
High population = more honey
Hive check -> High population = yes! I'm happy
Hive check -> High population = yes! I'm happy
Hive check -> High population = yes! I'm happy
Hive check -> swarm cells -> crap!!!!!
Find old queen (if I can) -> simulate swarm with three frames each of brood, pollen, and honey.
I'm catching them after it's too late and need to do better. I've heard a lot about no room to lay and providing empty drawn comb, which I am short on. In that scenario though, you're not going to throw out three frames of brood, pollen, or whatever. What do you do with what you take out? Make a split? If so, aren't you artificially swarming your hive anyway? And maybe that brood is about to hatch out and you'll be fine.
Help. Thanks.