Swarm season is an exciting time for a hobby beekeeper with a swarm box set up and ready to (hopefully) catch a swarm of honeybees looking for a new home. But more experienced commercial beekeepers are all about preventing swarms, and properly managing increases before the bees draw out a queen cell and 'split'.
In the old days, commercial beekeepers counted on swarms to make an increase in their colonies. Here's an old-time beekeeper's rhyme,
A swarm in May, is worth a load of hay. A swarm June is worth a silver spoon. A swarm in July is not worth a fly.
There are several good reasons why catching swarms has gone out of style with commercial beekeepers. A swarm is an unknown quantity. Nobody knows if the bees are carrying mites, foul brood, or some other bee disease. Bees that swarm are not as able to produce honey because their efforts are focused on producing bees. The swarming tendency is inherited, so the commercial operator is not usually interested in catching swarms. But he is very interested in preventing his bees from swarming.
I begin to split colonies as soon as the queen bee is forced down into the bottom box (around May first) where she resumes laying eggs. I make continuous trips about every two weeks to each hive, until the honey flow begins around July first. I pry the supers apart and search for swarm cells that are built on the bottom bars of the top super. A swarm cell is a queen cell built to expedite a swarm. When I see this cell I split the hive, and this usually succeeds in keeping the colony from swarming. I want my bees to stay home and produce honey.
There are two kinds of beekeepers, honey producers and queen and nuke producers. (A nuke is a four frame nucleus of a hive complete with a queen bee). The queen and nuke producers (bee breeders) produce honey bees and queens for sale. If you are a member of a Beekeeper's Association, it's doubtful you will hear much about splitting bee colonies from the membership, because if everyone split their bees to make an increase the Bee Breeders sales would be flat.
Latest Comments