Bill Holmes 
 

March just didn’t see much apiary action this year. The beginning of the month I was feeding 7 of 9 hives. 3 had no cook candy and 4 were on 1:1 syrup. Then in the middle of the month we took a week and went to Austin, Texas. Two weeks after our return and no symptoms of covid19. We were careful but things hadn’t quite started to blowup. Though our last couple days in Texas consisted of not seeing the LBJ library and a museum that was on our list as the community started shutting down.

 

At home I quit all feeding but let them finish what was on the hives. I feed syrup using quart jars over an inner cover which then has an empty deep surrounding the jars. It’s a great system, bees like it and it’s easy to refill without stirring up any bad feelings. April 1 I finally had time and a little weather to remove all the feeding apparatuses. It was only 50 so I had to be satisfied with just a look at the bees on the top of the frames.

 

I’ve heard of a few people putting supers on already. I don’t know what nectar sources they have or the condition of their bees, but for me it’s too early. I don’t want to feed syrup in the fall or next year and the only way to avoid it is to make sure they have plenty of honey. I’ve always reversed my hive bodies in the spring, and I nearly always have an empty deep on the bottom in the fall. So, on goes the syrup. This year I am going to encourage the bees to backfill the upper deep with honey and move down into the lower deep. They should then continue back filling into the lower deep with a crown of honey over the brood, with more honey in the outside frames. I won’t add supers until they have substantially filled the brood boxes. But I really need to get inside and look around on a warm sunny day. This coming weekend, I hope, will provide that.

 

April and May I take steps to avoid swarming in my hives. After that I let them do as they wish. If you live in town then you need to be a good neighbor and try to always keep them from swarming. If I can avoid a swarm until the middle of June and the nectar sources are strong, then I will get an excellent honey harvest. Later swarms provide a brood break for mite control and a new queen. I also can help other beekeepers by providing them swarms that I catch in bait boxes or hive those that rest in a convenient location. I’ve had hives swarm as early as April 20th but normally it’s a week or two later. Recognizing the conditions that initiate a swarm preparation are critical to managing them.

 

• Swarming is the colony’s way of reproducing at a larger level than the reproduction that takes place within the cells of wax comb.

• The swarm impulse is a hard-wired innate behavior. It is a process that healthy colonies go through and try as we might, we are unlikely to completely prevent it.

 

If you can change enough of the cues that trigger the swarm impulse, you may be able to prevent or even reverse it. Ultimately, as with other decisions made by the honey bee colony, specific responses to several factors or cues are involved in the initiation or reversal of the swarm impulse and not all of them are completely understood. Conditions that may initiate swarm preparation include:

• Colony size

  • A colony has grown in population beyond the capacity of their home. Bees cover most frames. This is the time to add capacity. If you have one brood box add a second box with foundation. Supers can also help relieve congestion. 

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• Brood nest congestion

  • Swarming typically does not occur unless the hive is full of sealed brood. When looking at a frame of brood you should see a ratio of one egg, 2 larvae and 4 capped brood. If what you’re seeing is mostly capped brood and a lack of cells to lay in, your hive could be thinking of swarming. Typically, queen rearing occurs when 90-95% of the cells in the brood nest contain some stage of brood.

  • Take measures to ensure that the queen’s ability to continue to lay to her full capacity is not restricted. You can rearrange brood combs by moving empty drawn frames into the brood nest. This is a great time to do a split or pull a nuc out, especially if they have initiated queen cells. You must replace brood comb removed with drawn foundation or the bees will not recognize it as additional brood capacity. They don’t visualize the future or see blank foundation as potential.

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• Reduced transmission of queen substances

  • This can occur in a crowded hive or when a queen is older. If you have dealt with the crowding and have a young queen, you should be ok.

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• Resource abundance

  • The swarming season coincides with a major honey flow, when the nectar is flowing freely. A colony is unlikely to swarm if the chances of either the parent hive or the swarm surviving are low due to lack of resources or poor weather. Should either the bloom or weather seriously decrease the amount of pollen and nectar coming in, a colony may reverse the swarm impulse.

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• Sufficient ventilation

  • An overheated hive will need to reduce the volume of bees, this can often be indicated by a bee beard hanging over the hive entrance, these are usually field bees pushed out by the house bees to reduce the hive temperature and humidity. Poor ventilation is frequently cited as a contributing factor to swarm initialization, but research is lacking. Too much air flow and the bees cannot keep the broodnest warm, so be careful on how many holes you put in your hives. Remove entrance reducers and use screened bottom boards at least partially opened. An upper entrance may be enough but ventilated inner covers such as Vivaldi boards could help. Don’t overdo it.

 

If you were too late doing any of the prevention actions above and find queen cells at the bottom of a few frames then there is still hope as long as they are not capped. Capped means they have likely swarmed or will be leaving quite soon. If it appears that they have swarmed (lack of fresh eggs may indicate they’ve swarmed) then I would remove most of the queen cells, maybe all but one to avoid a dreaded second or third swarm. If you are sure they haven’t left yet, then follow one of the artificial swarm splits. Bill