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Tag: artificial swarming

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What a difference the weather makes.

It was only six months ago I was bemoaning the fact that nearly all my colonies had fallen foul of chronic bee paralysis on a large scale and reduced me to only one colony large enough to be called a production colony.

With this one full size colony, three nucleus colonies and two strange ‘cut-outs’ that I’d been gifted from a neighbouring farm I went into the winter with fingers crossed.

Wonder of wonders; they all came through the winter successfully except one which lost its queen.

A glorious warm spring which just went on and on producing the best blossom displays I have ever seen. This led to a good oil-seed-rape harvest but in turn, it encouraged early swarming. I managed to control mine successfully by doing artificial swarming but many feral colonies were throwing swarms and casts.

A large swarm from a feral colony on Carver Barracks chose my front hedge to settle; thank you very much. The next day there seemed to be more than the usual left-behind stragglers and scouts so I put the skep back in the hedge. Later that day a cast had skepped itself in the same spot as the prime swarm. I tried the same the following day and got the second cast.; all from the same branch.

walden ave swarm
Walden Avenue Swarm

I have had four lure hives placed strategically around the garden and spinney but no luck. Yesterday I was called to take a cast from a church-friend’s garage roof. I had a hive set up with frames of foundation all ready for it, took the skep down to the apiary, lifted the crown board and was greeted with a brood box half full of bees. A swarm had hived themselves whilst I was out collecting another one. On the basis that you can add one swarm to another I simply tipped them in the top and left them to it. They didn’t like it! Whilst you can add one swarm on top of another within a seven day time-span you obviously can’t do it if one colony has chosen the hive themselves. The next morning found a 10mm layer of dead bees on the hive floor and one swarm clinging to the back of the brood box. I re-hived them all in a new box on new frames and they were perfectly happy.

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On the 11th of April Aimie and Sophie came for their first ‘in the apiary’ training session. Continued cold weather precluded opening any of the hives so it had to be a dry run

By the latter half of the month, all hives had been spring cleaned; clean floor, brood-box and crown board. None of the 2022 queens had been clipped as I am loathe to do this at the end of the season. Better to wait until the spring. A smaller colony means that she is easier to find and she is less likely to be rejected when they need all the fresh brood they can get.

20th April. Madeleine, apprentice of the year 2022, telephoned to say that her hive had swarmed. I’ve never known it to happen so early. Instant action was taken and all hives given a 1st super to relieve any pressure whether they had been spring cleaned or not. Three of the hives were supered too late as a later inspection revealed swarm queen cells.

Having watched a very informative zoom talk by Wally Shaw of the Welsh Beekeepers Association I downloaded his brochure from the WBKA web site and decided to follow his Snelgrove II method of artificial swarming. No extra equipment needed other than a spare hive and not even any need to hunt for a queen. (There is always the added advantage that you can requeen with queen cell raised from a more suitable colony.) One colony has undergone tis process successfully and a second will be completed next week.

Nectar and pollen is being foraged enthusiastically from both the oil seed rape and the sycamore. The loud humming coming from the sycamore trees is a sound to be heard.

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We had some rape honey this year albeit only a small amount but rape honey never-the-less. With judicious blending and seeding this could give a year’s supply of creamed honey.

Seeding? You warm and clear a tub of honey and then when it’s cool you add 10% of a creamed honey which has a nice smooth consistency. Provided the cleared honey would have eventually crystalised this will now do so at a much faster rate and with the same consistency as the seeding material.

All bar two of my 2018 queened colonies needed artificial swarming due probably to the weather. These were successfully completed but it did mean several under-strength colonies and a lot of hives. Combine this with the swarms I’d had to take and I was approaching my hive-insurance limit.

At least four virgin queens failed to return from mating flights. I don’t know why I should be so prone to this problem. Any ideas? Inserting test frames and allowing them to develop emergency queens did allow a temporary solution. Not the best, admittedly, but a later supersedure would then correct the problem.

The June gap was much more noticeable this year and spanned the entire month. I can measure it by the amount of bee activity at the pond. In the absence of nectar to evaporate down, the colonies need water as a substitute liquid for their air conditioning.

It is now the end of the month and the swarm colonies are being united down to a sensible number before an end of season unite with my selected queen colonies. Two of them had somehow rendered themselves queenless so a quick test frame and they were united with the colony alongside. This was done with the newspaper method to mask the colony odour as they nibbled through.

Uniting two colonies using the newspaper method

Hive number 6 is without doubt the best producing this year. No artificial swarm was needed the the queen continued with copious laying. As I write, I have already extracted 5½ supers and there is still much to come

Hive 6 with six supers
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