Swarm Control

[Vance G]

I have done too good a job of encouraging my bees to get to crop producing strength. My hives that were split are now boomers. The first of these to reach critical mass, one had swarmed and when I opened the hive I had virgins chewing out of cells as I watched on four frames! Of course I didn't have the right stuff with me only medium supers. So I spent the evening coaxing soft little virgins into second hand cages scrounged out of a junk box on the truck. So by dusks last glimmers I was stocking some mini mating nucs with the undrawn mini frames and some burr comb with honey saved for such an eventuality. The bulk bees gathered earlier were dispirited enough that they exhibited no aggression as I parceled them out and released the virgins. The bees just appeared happy to see them. Now someone needs to keep the little boy OUT of those boxes for three weeks.

[Allen Dick]

So by dusks last glimmers I was stocking some mini mating nucs with the undrawn mini frames and some burr comb with honey saved for such an eventuality.

If you have any old brood combs made on wax foundation, they can be cut to size with knife and side cutters and put into nuc frames where they will be attached right away by the bees. Comb on plastic foundation can be cut, too, with a band saw or similar device.

Of course, the problem with nucs in a good season is too much comb being built and too much honey coming in.

[Vance G]

I went out and worked more bees and find I have swarm preparations going on all over and have lost a couple already. I know mushing early cells is no solution but I reversed boxes and and took splits out of the middle and gave those a cell. At least I won't lose all of them. These hives were split in early May and are two deeps busting out with bees again. I put drawn supers on them as the sweet clover is just starting to bloom and that means the alfalfa will be on in a couple weeks. The bees made me pay for being there as a thunderstorm was on the way in.

[karen]

We are going on our 3rd day of cold and rain so when this ends there will be a lot of swarming. I find in the spring after confinement from bad weather the bees get serious about swarming.

I just finished splitting all my hives last week and it seems everyone around me is just starting. The end of the week, when the sun is supposed to show itself, I am booked with appointments to help others split their hives. In my hives I only found queen cells in two hives and I took the queens in both cases so they would not fly away.

I practice the adage about requeening after the summer solstice. Back in the 70’s the old timers would tell me if I requeened after the summer solstice I would have less swarming the following spring. In my experience this is true. I hardly get a swarm out of my own apiary. I don’t think this method of controlling swarming is printed in to many books, I have seen in in Swarm Essentials by Steve Repasky sold by Wicwas Press. Does anyone else practice this method to prevent swarming? May be it is an East Coast thing.

[karen]

This should have the heading of the smallest swarm I have ever caught.
I had noticed bees nosing around the inside of the bed of the truck. There are supports back by the tailgate that have holes in them and I saw bees checking out the holes. I was wondering if a swarm was nearby and went and looked at my swarm traps but nothing was poking around them so I went back to work. My son went out to the garden and came to get me because he noticed the cab of the truck had a lot of bee flying around in it. I found the bees all happy on my tool bucket and they had a nice little dark spot in the pocket of the tool bucket organizer. They were very content in the pocket but I made the move out. It is a small swarm so they are in a 3 frame hive right now. I had to pick some of them out of the pocket with tweezers.

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