Swarm Prevention
Managing the colony so they do not want to swarm.
- Requeen at least every two years
- The younger the queen the less likely she is to swarm.
- Requeening is another whole page.
- Reverse the brood area
- If you have two brood boxes swap them.
- Or add a new brood box full of drawn comb
- Swap one frame of capped brood for one frame of drawn comb.
- The bees now have more space and may remain.
- This should be done as soon as you see queen cups.
- Add new supers
- Add new supers if existing supers half full.
- The bees now have more space and may remain.
- Ventilate the hives
- Check there is sufficient ventilation.
- If it is very hot then shade the hive.
- Remove any entrance blocks to increase air flow
- Use excess bees to strengthen weaker colonies
- If some colonies are stronger then move some brood to weaker colonies.
- Create nuclei from the colony
- Use the Demarree method of swarm prevention
- Do not clip the queen's wings
- The swarm leaves, the queen tries to follow.
- The swarm realises they do not have the queen with them.
- The swarm returns to the hive - success!
- BUT
- The queen fell out of the hive onto the grass.
- She was eaten by a bird or a mouse
- She climbed back into the hive - but under the mesh floor.
- You now have a hive that still wants to swarm but might have no queen.
- Do not destroy queen cells
- If you find queen cells they may have already swarmed.
- This is where having a marked queen helps.
- Destroying all queen cells could lead to a queenless colony.
- They may still want to swarm - you have not addressed the cause.
- Let the bees decide which queen cell they want to keep.
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