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Thread: Will your bees attempt to swarm in May

  1. #141

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    That really is a complicated question Gavlar. Up there along with which type of bee is the best? Which type of hive is the best? Which honey is the best?

    Is the key here - simply the number, strength of the foraging force matched to the timing of a flow? So, highly variable and might depend on timings of doing the split related to when and how the Q has been laying irrespective of where you put her. I do feel sure that with no young to feed then more nectar should be stored, but then again a foraging force must use up a lot as well. Then are they making alot of wax?

    In case you are wondering - my bees are pretty good (but I suspect that given this spring weather then everyone's bees are good), I like poly-Nationals (Swienty), Jim Batchelor's bell heather honey is pretty spectacular.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    Anyone have a view on whether splits with the old queen gather honey better than equivalent splits with queen cells?
    Funny you should ask that. I was pondering same yesterday whilst removing three super's full of honey from a queenless double brood hive waiting for a virgin to emerge (Queen was put in nuc as swarm control here) and then removed another three supers from a split where the Q+ side is on the bottom and the Q- is Snelgroved on top....and I haven't let any of the top fliers back. If anything the later colony was the smaller as only on single brood box.

    I know that some use a three frame queen cage to restrict the queen's laying when there is a flow on...meaning that the workforce can concentrate on honey rather than waste time and energy brood rearing. I've heard of people who supposedly take queenless hives to the heather as they reckon better yield (although I suspect this may be a bit of fiction).

    What I do know is bigger colonies give bigger yields given the rub of the green. Although I have had large colonies that gave disappointing yields in comparison to others of similar size. I was reading seem stuff on high vs low pollen gatherers. Turns out the high pollen gatherers are poor honey collectors in comparison to the low pollen gatherers. Makes sense that honey collection is something that can be selected for.

  3. #143
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    Quote Originally Posted by Feckless Drone View Post
    Is the key here - simply the number, strength of the foraging force matched to the timing of a flow?
    Well, that was the default previously but not what mbc thinks he sees and maybe not what I see too. That mysterious thing the hive mind, the morale of the hive, its ambition to do stuff. Curiously it could fit biology. The future need is for young bees so they preserve themselves for that.

    A bit like virgins in big boxes saving themselves for later. Why get mated and start brood rearing now when the health of the whole colony might be improved by letting everyone get out of their little rooms and giving the place a damn good clean first. Virgins in little boxes (or the workers who control them) know that priority number one is building so that they're strong enough to get through the coming winter. Best not wait for all the little rooms to become empty.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Thymallus View Post
    I was pondering same yesterday whilst removing three super's full of honey from a queenless double brood hive waiting for a virgin to emerge (Queen was put in nuc as swarm control here) and then removed another three supers from a split where the Q+ side is on the bottom and the Q- is Snelgroved on top....and I haven't let any of the top fliers back. If anything the later colony was the smaller as only on single brood box.
    I was out at an apiary this evening in a part of Perthshire which had been nicely refreshed after today's rain. They followed the same pattern as we've been discussing with less storage in strong splits missing the old queen.

    Think I'm going to have to reassess my swarm control. And maybe try proper replicated experiments.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    Maybe they 'know' they have to preserve themselves for the brood rearing tasks ahead rather than beat themselves to death stashing in a huge crop for the future of the colony. It is always nice to rationalise these things even when my own observations are definitely built on sand.
    Might the answer to this be something to do with evolution and swarming. In a natural swarm (which is not the same one of our splits) the majority of the adults disappear with the Q. The age distribution of bees in these swarms is known (Gilley looked at this https://www.apidologie.org/articles/..._3_ART0003.pdf and it's strongly biased towards the younger bees i.e. <10 days from eclosion). At best - assuming no comb in the new site - the rate limiting step to colony build up is going to be nectar coming in for comb building. In contrast, the ~25% of the colony left behind have lashings of stores and lots of mouths to feed. Their priority for survival is rearing a new Q.

    Which of the splits, Pagden's etc. best replicate a natural swarm, and does the queenright portion 'behave' like a swarm with regard to nectar collection.

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    Yes, I can see the evolutionary reasons for the behaviour around swarming. It is as if there are whole-colony behaviours associated with building, storing, propagating and preparing for renewed building.

    Let's proceed assuming that we are convinced that the presence of the old queen helps foraging. So, to replicate a natural swarm with its preponderance of young bees we'd have to:

    - do a split, old Q in a box on a the old site with only sealed brood or no brood at all
    - shake three quarters of the house bees into this hive (avoiding shaking the chosen queen cell)
    - let some flyers in during this time then add travel screen, close up and move aside
    - put the old brood box with queen cell(s) but depleted in young bees back on the old site
    - leave many of the flyers to re-enter that box
    - take the old Q/new box away to a different apiary to ensure the flyers in the box with the old queen remain there

    The thing is this new box of bees will not actually have been though the swarming process so may not have all the right triggers. Besides, it will still have a job of work to do building up again. Could be a good move though if stocks are to be moved to a new site for a particular honey crop. The problem could be that the colony is still in a mind to swarm and will very quickly return to that activity but if you are careful avoiding letting it have any eggs or open larvae it should work.

    My feeling about the most productive set-up is that the original, pre-swarming hive is the ideal. The fairly striking contrast I've been seeing (in a smallish sample so far) is mostly between colonies split without the old queen in residence (or attempted to swarm and lost the old queen) and colonies still not in the reproductive phase. Hence the most productive colonies in a good spring flow might be those managed in one of two ways to delay any swarming attempts to the June gap, such as it is:

    - pre-swarming Demaree to delay swarming (as long as you are happy to recover honey from the top box, perhaps sequentially)
    - a strong colony continually persuaded to avoid swarming by taking out a frame or two from the brood box and replacing with foundation, maybe making up a nuc or two from an apiary each visit. The comb building and new space created should help hold them back.

    Of course an even better strategy is to make sure that you have non-swarmy bees! Easier said than done perhaps. I have one apiary with Jon Getty's queens and their daughters and grandaughters - the original generation are clearly non-swarmy but a couple of generations down the line crossing with the local drones (mostly from the one commercial beekeeper I would assume) and that trait is far less obvious.
    Last edited by gavin; 03-06-2018 at 01:50 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    - pre-swarming Demaree to delay swarming (as long as you are happy to recover honey from the top box, perhaps sequentially)
    Proper Demaree is hard work as you are supposed to be constantly moving up brood frames from bottom box to prevent this. It's why I prefer some form of division board (eg Snelgrove) as it prevents the top brood box getting back filled with honey.
    I often wonder what people are on about when they say they use a modified Demaree board...sounds like a form of divison/snelgrove type board.

    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    Of course an even better strategy is to make sure that you have non-swarmy bees! Easier said than done perhaps. I have one apiary with Jon Getty's queens and their daughters and grandaughters - the original generation are clearly non-swarmy but a couple of generations down the line crossing with the local drones (mostly from the one commercial beekeeper I would assume) and that trait is far less obvious.
    Exactly same experience, as the downstream generations progressed and they became more "localised", more aggressive and more swarmy. The last of the original queens I had died this winter...she would have been 4 years old this year.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Feckless Drone View Post

    Is the key here - simply the number, strength of the foraging force matched to the timing of a flow?
    No, although in general that strategy will serve you well.
    A strong hive will, in general, bring in more honey than a smaller hive. I think the figures are like 2x bee numbers in one hive=3x the amount of honey compared to 2 separate hives with 1x bee numbers in each.
    But the complication, I think, lies in previous selection for honey collection strains. There are high and low pollen collecting strains of bees and the honey collection is inversely proportional. i.e high pollen gather strains are poor honey gatherers and vice versa.
    You can often find hives of nearly equivalent bee numbers, but only one is really doing the business honey wise. The other, I suspect, is just raising more bees.
    Last edited by Thymallus; 03-06-2018 at 06:01 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Thymallus View Post
    Proper Demaree is hard work as you are supposed to be constantly moving up brood frames from bottom box to prevent this. It's why I prefer some form of division board (eg Snelgrove) as it prevents the top brood box getting back filled with honey.
    I often wonder what people are on about when they say they use a modified Demaree board...sounds like a form of divison/snelgrove type board.

    Exactly same experience, as the downstream generations progressed and they became more "localised", more aggressive and more swarmy. The last of the original queens I had died this winter...she would have been 4 years old this year.
    Can't help thinking that - on the weekly to 9 day inspections - it isn't much work to recover the honey frames from the upper box and replace with foundation or extracted comb below as you rotate the sealed brood upwards. Bet I'd get a much larger spring honey crop. I'll need to go through the boxes for a swarm check anyway. Although there is a disease risk from returning extracted frames to other colonies and apiaries - and returning extracted frames to the same colonies would be awkward or need a visit for recovery and extraction followed by another visit to return the frames.

    Look at me - thinking and planning as if a good spring flow is normal ;-)

    A week ago I still had one of those 4 year old queens! Here anyway I wouldn't use the word 'localised', just thoroughly hybridised with what other beekeeper(s) are choosing to keep. Usually those hybrids are a mess in terms of behaviour and perhaps swarminess.
    Last edited by gavin; 04-06-2018 at 07:41 AM.

  10. #150

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    Look at me - thinking and planning as if a good spring flow is normal ;-)
    Bother - I was assuming I was reaping the benefits of being into my second season with bigger colonies and boxes full of drawn comb... Is this not normal?

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