by Swarming – a natural process for bees to separate a new swarm from an existing family. It occurs for various reasons. If it is not prevented or the bees are not caught in time, the apiary is threatened with significant losses. Such trouble can be avoided with the help of various preventive measures.
What it is?
The process of swarming of bees in hives is a state in which a certain number of them try to separate from the entire brood. The result is a new young colony, ready to function independently.
It is this readiness to swarm that causes some worker bees to fly away from the hive, leaving the rest without a queen. But they will have to raise a new queen for themselves and gradually increase their strength.
On the one hand, swarming is a positive phenomenon of family division, which allows increasing the number of bees in the apiary. But if the beekeeper misses the moment and is unable to catch the separated ones in time, he will simply lose them, as they will fly away.
Therefore, it is important for a beekeeper to know the following points:
- When does the swarm start to swarm?
- Be able to work with swarms.
- Conduct preventive measures against bee swarming in the apiary, that is, carry out anti-swarming measures in the apiary.
- Be able to catch newly separated bees.
- Identify the uterus.
- Know how to encourage your winged pets to swarm in a controlled manner when new colonies are needed.
The swarming process
The whole process is as follows:
- They start to build cells in order to lay larvae in them and feed them with royal jelly.
- So They raise new queens.
- When the laying is completed, then the workers seal the entrance to such cells.
- In 7 days, provided that the weather is warm enough and there is no wind, the swarming process occurs, as a result of which 1 brood is divided into 2.
- Old Queen will fly out together with new worker bees, forming part of the family. The basic age of workers is no more than 1 month. Each worker individual carries a full crop of honey to the house. Several drones are also prepared to fly out of the apiary.
- This whole process takes about 10 minutes. That is, during this time, the total mass of bees in this state ends up outside the hive.
- So that the queen can carry out the process of flight, the worker bees stop giving her special food for a certain period of time before the swarming season begins. As a result, her abdomen decreases in size, and she becomes able to move short distances.
- After they emerge from the flight hole, they occupy the nearest branches in the apiary or small protrusions on bushes and trees. They group here in tight balls. This is done so that the scouts can choose the most optimal place for future housing. This usually takes at least 2 hours or a little more.
If the beekeeper does not manage to prevent the process of leaving his apiary, then he will most likely lose them forever.
Part of the former family remains in the old house. Since there is brood here, after a certain period of time new worker bees and new queens will appear.
But the new queen that appears, which has more strength, will destroy all rivals in order to have the opportunity to copulate with drones and lead the family. It is she who will continue to lay eggs and build up the bee family. But until this happens, the weakened part will continue to build honeycombs and extract nectar.
Causes
The laying of the queen cell occurs at the level of the reproductive instinct. It is this that pushes to build a new home and expand its numbers and strengthen the family.
Moreover, this is an excellent way to avoid unfavorable living conditions later on when there are too many bees.
If we consider all the reasons, down to the smallest details, that can push us to this state, then here is what can become a catalyst:
- When further egg laying is not possible due to lack of proper space. New space is needed.
- Part of the workers, who stop fulfilling their functional responsibilities, can also push others to separate.
- When the queen became too old.
- When inside the house The ventilation is not sufficiently intensive. The bees overheat.
- Also some breeds are prone to more intense and frequent occurrence of this condition.
- This can also happen, when spring comes quite late. Or in a particular season there are unfavorable weather conditions.
- With poor flowering of honey plants in the immediate vicinity of the apiary, some of the workers are idle, which prompts them to separate.
- But this can also happen when the family’s house overheats. and bees, for example, when the hot rays of the sun fall on it for too long and the space inside overheats. Thus, this can happen in July.
- Aging of queens is also a good enough reason for this process to occur. Upon reaching the age of four, the female reduces the amount of pheromones she produces, so the rest of the family no longer perceives her as an individual for producing new offspring. Therefore, queen cells are built to obtain a new queen.
Reproductive swarming
Even despite the workload and spacious housing, some families still enter a swarming state. And this is normal, since the family follows the instinct to reproduce.
After wintering, bees try to increase their numbers in anticipation of the nectar flow. When the first honey plants appear, having considered the family’s strength sufficient, they begin to fill all the honeycombs with honey, leaving no room for the queen to lay eggs.
When nurse bees are left without work, they begin to make sounds that are more like trills than buzzing. This is how they express their discontent. After the nest is filled with honey, the laying of swarm queen cells begins, and soon the queen leaves the nest with part of the family.
Important! Even after catching the swarm, the cycle of commercial honey production will be disrupted. In addition, it is not a fact that the family will be limited to one division. Therefore, there are a number of measures and even methods to prevent or reduce to zero the loss of productivity of families due to swarming.
Evidence
To help the beekeeper get his bearings in advance, here are the signs that occur during swarming that should be paid attention to:
- Flights for a bribe become more rare.
- In evening time a flight is carried out, but only for a short distance. This indicates that the adjacent territories are being examined for the possibility of arranging a new nest.
- On frames or walls The honey workers begin to gather in fairly large groups. At this time they behave restlessly and produce intense noise.
- It is also important to take a closer look to the behavior of workers from such a family – they begin to clean off the propolis stuck to the surface from the entrance and the hole. They do this so that the queen can freely exit.
- Sounds appear, which the young queen makes. She calls out to her competitors, who are still sitting in sealed honeycomb cells. This is also a sign of swarming.
Swarm capture
No matter what measures are taken, even the most experienced beekeepers have cases of swarms flying out. And if your apiary has not been around for long, then you should definitely start preparing for a possible flight of bees.
To do this, you should always have in stock:
- At least one empty hive;
- 2-3 traps prepared and placed in advance. It is better to prepare them in the fall: disinfect, dry thoroughly, and, if necessary, paint;
- Special preparations used to attract bees (Apiroy, Apimil).
Trapping
A swarm box is fixed to a tree at a short distance from the apiary. It can be purchased or homemade. If you make the trap yourself, make sure it is large (at least 50 l), because the mass of bees that fly out of the hive may not fit inside.
To make the bees notice the new house, spray it with bait, make an entrance and ventilation, and install several frames with dry material inside.
Place several prepared swarms around the apiary, firmly securing them 6-8 m from the ground. Choose quiet places, and coniferous trees are best.
If you did everything correctly, the swarm will definitely notice the cozy house and settle there. All that remains is to transfer the bees to the hive:
- After sunset, when all the bees have flown home, carefully cover the entrance with a bunch of dry grass and transfer it to the prepared hive;
- Don’t forget to replace the removed trap with an empty one;
- When transferring frames with bees into the hive, be sure to check if there is a queen there;
- Review all frames from the trap, if they are bad, replace them;
- If necessary, deliver frames with wax foundation and dry bees to the hive;
- Cover the bees with a cloth and a lid, and place an empty trap nearby to encourage the remaining bees to fly into the hive.
Catching without traps
Special traps are another piece of work, which is always in abundance at the apiary. Therefore, some beekeepers use methods for removing the swarm without special devices:
- Using a hive. For this purpose, the lower Dadant body or lounger is placed approximately 50 m from the apiary. 5-8 frames with dry bees are installed inside the bee house, and then treated with baits. The advantage of this method is that the settled swarm no longer needs to be moved to the hive, the bees develop calmly. During the season, such an improvised trap can collect up to 3 swarms;
- Using a frame box. Such a device is always at hand and can be used in an emergency. Any other box of the appropriate size can serve as a replacement. When the swarm has taken off and is hanging near the apiary, 2-3 frames with dry bees are placed in the box and baited. After that, if there is no stepladder at hand, the box is placed on the head and slowly moved under the tree.
How to prevent swarming? Preventive measures
In fact, experienced beekeepers do everything to prevent this condition in honey bees.
To achieve this, they carry out certain preventive methods:
- Provide sufficient free space for the bees.
- They attract some of the freed workers to useful work.
- They are not given the opportunity to build new queen cells or breed a new queen.
Reforming the hive bodies
When a beekeeper sees that the space of the house is becoming too cramped, he should carry out a set of measures to expand the living space.
This can be done in the following ways:
- Initially, install the frames. They can be either empty or waxed.
- When they become full, the problem can be solved by installing a new building or a so-called second floor.
Uterine replacement
When the reason lies in the age of the queen, she is replaced with a new one. It is recommended to carry out such manipulation at least once every 1 years. The old one is destroyed, and the new one is either hatched from the egg, or they try to plant a young one.
Frame selection
The problem can be solved by taking frames with fertilized brood and placing them in houses where the family is weak or small. This is done with every 3rd frame.
Here two positive aspects are achieved at once:
- Preventing bee swarming.
- Strengthening weak shoots.
How to combat swarming?
As it became clear from the above material, the fight against this phenomenon should be carried out systematically in the apiary.
Otherwise, the beekeeper loses some of the very active young workers with a fertile queen, who will no longer be able to collect honey for him. For this, you can use a variety of methods, which we will discuss below.
Artificial swarming
Quite often experienced beekeepers use the division of honey workers. This manipulation allows achieving several effects at once:
- Strengthening the family after the winter period.
- Improving the quality of the breed.
- Reduce the risk of disease in the family.
- Strengthen and expand the farm. In this case, the breeding of new queens is allowed, but in such a way that they form a new family under the control of the beekeeper.
Today, several proprietary techniques are quite widespread, helping to avoid this undesirable condition.
Shock therapy
The procedure for carrying out shock therapy is as follows:
- The entire family of bees is shaken out of the frames onto a special board.
- And I take away all the frames with honey, leaving them with an empty hive.
- This is done for 3 days. After which they begin to lay honey on the ceilings in specially constructed tongues. This means that the swarming state has already ceased. At the same time, the insects themselves kill the extra queens. But they themselves do not try to fly away anywhere.
- Only then can you put the frames back in place.
Siemens method
This option is ideal for those hives that have a superstructure. In the lower part, place empty frames, as well as those with wax foundation.
After this, launch the entire previously removed family through the lower opening. In this case, they will be divided into those that will take care of the offspring and will go to the upper part and those that will build the honeycomb in the lower section.
Taranov’s method
The sequence of actions in this case is as follows:
- They fumigate the hive and the space between the frames and force them to fill their crops with honey.
- Shake the whole family from the frames onto the board for arrival.
- They are placed specifically in a swarm box, leaving them there to spend the night.
- All discovered queen cells are cut off. This prevents new queens from hatching.
- Then all the bees are returned to their place.
- If they are transplanted into a new hive, they will take longer to prepare for the next harvest.
Demaree Method
In this variant of swarming prevention the following is performed:
- Separate adults from young.
- Separate the young ones into a separate upper part, where the sealed honeycombs are already located in frames. This section must be insulated.
- The second ones are left in the lower part, where the open brood is located. Waxed frames are also added here.
It is also possible to perform such a manipulation, in which all the brood and all the insects are taken away from the queen. And she remains alone on the honeycombs under the control of the beekeeper.
Kostylev’s method
This technique is performed as follows:
- They all gather and carry them on a special board to a sufficient distance from their usual hive. The queen is also there.
- The frames filled with honey are removed.
- The sealed brood is sent to another house.
- The queen cells are cut off. And new queens are not hatched.
- The next morning, open brood from another family and waxed frames are placed in this house.
- After that, you can lean the board on which the removed insects are located back against the flight hole.
Open brood
The mismatch between the amount of open and sealed brood is cited by some beekeepers as the main cause of swarming. Excessive sealed brood leaves young bees without work. However, a beekeeper can easily adjust this by placing open brood from a weak hive into a strong colony and sealed frames into a weak colony.
New offshoot
If a beekeeper notices signs of swarming, he can artificially divide the family without waiting for the bees to fly away. To do this, a hive is placed nearby, into which 4 frames are left from the parent family: two with brood at the exit and 2 with food.
You can make a division with a queen or with a queen cell at the exit. The formed division is moved to a cool place, closing the entrances and leaving only ventilation. And in the evening, it is transported to a new place. The disadvantages of this method are the need for transportation and a small number of drones in the new place.
FAQ
- When and why do bees start swarming? Usually the swarming instinct awakens from mid-April, when the hive is filled with young generations of the family. Most of them are not busy raising brood at this time, which provokes the swarm to emerge.
- What age of bees leave the hive when swarming? A cell that has swarmed from a family includes groups of different ages, but 80% of its mass is made up of worker bees up to 24 days old. Often up to 71% of drones join them. Having separated, the swarm stops in a windless place and flies away after a signal from the scout bees.
- What behavioral signs in working bees indicate imminent swarming? The bees, absorbed in collecting honey, fly away from the nest quickly, and upon returning, they enter the hive entrance without delay. A decrease in flight activity and numerous clusters of bee groups at the entrance to the hive indicate that the swarming instinct is gaining strength.
- How to predict swarming based on the behavior of bees on the landing board? When preparing to settle down, the bees gather on the entrance area of the hive and gnaw at it. On a board covered with paint, such damage will be more noticeable.
- If at the end of July a bee colony is grouped under the frames of the honeycombs, but their productivity in collecting honey has not dropped. Should we expect them to swarm? The signals indicating swarming are a decrease in the work rate and the construction of queen cells. Until they appear, the inhabitants of the hive do not have a swarming instinct. The accumulation of bees is most likely associated with a lack of space.
- Is it possible to stop swarming by clipping the queen bee’s wings? Such a measure is ineffective. The queen will follow the departed family on foot and get lost. Not finding her, the colony will return to the house, and after waiting for a new queen to appear, it will repeat the flight.
- How much time will pass between the emergence of young queens from the nest and their departure with the swarm? By the time they emerge from the cell, the queens are active, strong and capable of flying after the settling group on the 2nd day.
- Does it happen that a family releases a swarm without laying queen cells? Yes, because with the beginning of swarming, developed bee colonies often accept young queens that have flown in from other nests. Then the visiting “queen” takes the place of the native one, and the latter leaves for the swarm.
- Why, during seasonal swarming, do some families disperse while others continue to work, collecting a larger honey harvest? The swarming state of bees is affected by living conditions, the productivity of the queen, and the amount of honey collected. Living in a stuffy nest, where there are no cells for brood, and the number of unoccupied honey collectors increases, the bee colony begins to swarm. When the hive is spacious, warm, well ventilated, their desire to settle decreases. It should be taken into account that in certain breeds the swarming instinct fades away at different levels of honey collection. Central Russian bees delay the exit of the swarm, collecting 2-3 kg of honey per day, and gray mountain Caucasian bees are satisfied with 400-500 grams.
- What is more profitable for an apiary: to make colony divisions or not to stop natural swarming? To increase honey collection, it is more profitable to increase the number of families by dividing the genus in half or by selecting the divisions. After all, when swarming, the owner needs to catch the bees that have flown away, and then wait for their strength to recover, having lost time collecting nectar.
