[deepster]

Hi all
I like to do all I can to prevent swarms from my hives, I have decided to put the supers on about two weeks early and also put two supers on hives that I think are very strong. Please let me know what the drawbacks of these two action would be?

 

[Gray Goose]

I presume you are unwrapped from winter, if supering, here it is yet way too early.
as long as there are enough bees to keep the brood warm I do not see an issue.
if you have it comb in the first super would help with swarming. immediate space.

GG

 

[username00101]

Risk is if it gets cold, and now there's an empty super. Even with enough bees to cover the brood, bees do not respond well to empty space in April.

I'm extremely hesitant to make ANY manipulations unless absolutely necessary in April.

I've gotten bit in the rear end plenty of times in the Spring, and even got bit in the rear end recently, because I got complacent (there's another thread about that).

 

[Vance G]

As long as the colony cluster has brood clear to the top of the frames in the upper brood box, you have nothing to fear about swarming. When the bees start plugging the brood nest with incoming nectar is when bees indicate they are preparing their nest to swarm. Mr Wright and his nectar management will help you deal with the process. Supering too early can indeed set your colony back.

 

[mtnmyke]

I super when I start seeing the girls cap honey above the brood nest. This tells me they are bringing in plenty of food and I need to get the supers on before they backfill the nest. If the queen is really brooding up, you have enough bees to cover that brood, daytime temps are in the 60s, and there is a flow - then super up!

 

[SGBF2021]

As long as the colony cluster has brood clear to the top of the frames in the upper brood box, you have nothing to fear about swarming. When the bees start plugging the brood nest with incoming nectar is when bees indicate they are preparing their nest to swarm. Mr Wright and his nectar management will help you deal with the process. Supering too early can indeed set your colony back.

How long does that process take for them to swarm?

 

[mtnmyke]

How long does that process take for them to swarm?

About as long as it takes them to cap the swarm cells. Once they decide to swarm the queen will lay in the swarm cups. 8.5-9 days later the cell will be capped and the queen could leave anytime at that point.

As such, this is why most commercial operations go through each hive every 9 days during swarm season - to check for and knock down any swarm cells and manage from there appropriately. As swarm cells are nearly always at the bottom of the frames, they can simply tilt back the boxes to look at the bottoms.

 

[deepster]

Thank you everyone, I knew there would be a draw back, however I decided to super one of the strongest hive to prevents them from any thought of swarming. I shall see. I am doing lot of experiments like that to see what works best. I have managed to increase my survival rate coming out of winter, I still need to improve on swarm prevention.

 

[SGBF2021]

About as long as it takes them to cap the swarm cells. Once they decide to swarm the queen will lay in the swarm cups. 8.5-9 days later the cell will be capped and the queen could leave anytime at that point.

As such, this is why most commercial operations go through each hive every 9 days during swarm season - to check for and knock down any swarm cells and manage from there appropriately. As swarm cells are nearly always at the bottom of the frames, they can simply tilt back the boxes to look at the bottoms.

Ok! Even though i couldnt find any babiy bees i noticed some honey bees head first in the cells, upon research i read they were "warming up" the babies an keeping them warm so thats encouraging to know unless it means somethin else? But ya appreciate it

Thank you everyone, I knew there would be a draw back, however I decided to super one of the strongest hive to prevents them from any thought of swarming. I shall see. I am doing lot of experiments like that to see what works best. I have managed to increase my survival rate coming out of winter, I still need to improve on swarm prevention.

What kind of bees do you have? I got bees locally and bee dude said that the bees are to big to use a queen excluder there italian