Don’t panic. Don’t be offended. Let’s just deal with the situation at hand.
What are we talking about?
Swarming.
Swarming is natural behaviour from the bees. It’s great for them but may not be desirable to beekeepers. That’s because it involves the queen and a group of workers saying goodbye to the hive and dividing the colony in two. The departing bees fly away, form a protective cluster around the queen in a temporary location, and send out scouts to go house hunting. Once the scouts pick out a cosy new home, everyone moves in. And with that, they establish a shiny new colony. It may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you hear ‘reproduction’, but swarming is in fact an important part of honey bee reproduction.
There are a number of potential triggers for this action but, I promise, your bees are not swarming because they don’t love you anymore. Please don’t take it personally. The most common reason for swarming is that the colony is thriving and has become overcrowded. So, if anything, it means you’ve been doing a good job.
The signs of discontent
It’s swarming season right now. April to July is the most popular time of year for bees to attempt to form new colonies, so be extra attentive in keeping watch for these signs. Swarms can happen in other months though and it’s even more important that you prevent your bees from departing between August and March because they’re less likely to survive, especially if they don’t acquire a benevolent beekeeper.
The earliest sign that a swarm may occur is the aforementioned overcrowding. If the hive is stuffed with food stores and bees abound, then this colony has outgrown its hive. However, if you notice this and none of the other signs, then you may have the opportunity to prevent the bees from swarming by providing them with more space. Hurry!
Watch out for the status symbol that is an excess of drones! Only a wealthy colony could sustain a large population of men who do nothing but consume resources. But the bees aren’t producing drones just because they can – they’re not that egotistical. Swarming is all about spreading, increasing and diversifying the honey bee species, and the one purpose drones have is to mate with virgin queens. So, having drones around supports the goal of reproduction.
Swarming is not caused by a family rift. The queen and workers who plan to leave will prepare as much as possible to give the remaining bees the best chance of survival without them. Therefore, you should pay attention to the presence of queen cells. If workers have constructed queen cells in the centre of a frame, then you have an entirely different issue: the reigning queen may have died! These queen cells are probably intended to produce an emergency replacement. But if queen cells are present on the bottom or edges of a frame, these are swarm queen cells. Check whether they’re occupied with an egg or larva submerged in royal jelly, ready to transform into a beautiful new queen. If so, your bees are indeed planning to swarm.
How fit is the current queen? If she looks like she’s been slimming down and working out, then she is no longer prioritising laying and is getting ready for flight. She and her workers could be heading out the door at any moment.
Deal with it
You’ve spotted the signs and you think your bees are about to swarm. What do you do?!
Let me break the bad news to you: you cannot prevent the bees from swarming once they’ve made up their minds to do it. Their resolve is unbreakable and they will try and try until they succeed.
You have two options.
Option 1: Let them go.
It is okay to let the bees swarm. It’s natural behaviour and it’s good for the honey bee species.
Option 2: Intervene.
Maybe you’re worried about what the apiary’s neighbours will think! Seeing a swarm can be alarming, so you may want to save the people nearby from a fright. Although, in reality, the bees aren’t interested in humans; they just want to find somewhere to live.
Maybe you simply want to keep your bees.
If you choose to intervene, your best bet is to control the swarm.
The bees want to split by leaving the brood, including the developing queens, and the nurse bees in the hive, while the foraging workers and the queen depart to form a new colony. The nurse bees in the original hive can tend to the brood using the remaining stores to raise new workers and a new queen. Meanwhile, the foraging workers and existing queen would be equipped to gather new supplies and increase their numbers once they find their new home.
As a crafty beekeeper, you can use this knowledge to influence their behaviour.
Perhaps the most common technique used to control a swarm is Pagden’s artificial swarm method which takes advantage of the bees’ natural behaviour. Here’s what you do:
Step 1: If you’ve seen the new royalty growing inside the swarm queen cells, go! If not, abort!
Step 2: Locate the current queen, who is probably looking rather trim, and remove whichever frame she is on and put it to one side within a frame box to keep her safe.
Step 3: Move the entire hive to a new location. Don’t take it far away, but it mustn’t stay where it is. Just beside where it is currently is ideal.
Step 4: In the place you moved the hive from, set up a fresh brood box with some frames of foundation or empty drawn comb.
Step 5: The queen and her frame can take up residence in this fresh box. The worker bees who are out foraging will enter this box because it’s at their home address. The foragers still inside the original hive will also find their way here for the same reason. That means the bees who would have swarmed are all gathered together in an empty hive. It’s the perfect new home! Just like if they had swarmed, the workers can now forage and build up their supplies and the queen can now lay eggs to build up their workforce.
Step 6: This step is brutal but you’re going to have to destroy all but two of the queen cells from the original hive. You’re establishing a new colony in there so they need a new queen, but you don’t want to let too many royal babies be born. With multiple queens, it’s possible one of them will lead a swarm away to create her own empire. This isn’t a good idea because both your new colony and this virgin queen’s colony will be weak.
Step 7: Step away. Let the bees do their thing for 7 days. They have food reserves, nurse bees and brood, including the queen cells, just as they would have if their sisters and mother had swarmed. They will raise a new queen during these 7 days.
Step 8: On the 7th day, you’re going to prank the bees by moving around the old hive again. Leave the new hive where it is. Place the old hive on the opposite side of the new hive. This step boosts the population of your colony with the older queen because workers searching for the old hive will enter the new hive instead, since it is closer to where they expected the door to be.
Step 9: Do not touch the hives after day 7. Both colonies have gone through a tumultuous period so leave them to build up and settle in. After a month, you should have two laying queens and it should be okay to perform inspections again. Congratulations!
There are other strategies devised by other bee experts, such as the Demaree method which is similar to the Pagden method but uses vertical space instead of requiring the beekeeper to have more ground to expand upon. Do your research and find the swarm control technique that best suits your circumstances.
I hope you’re feeling calm, prepared and ready to act (or not) should your colony show signs of wanting to spread its wings.
